Conference!

Michigan has a bright future in wind energy, according to attendees at a sold-out wind power conference held Monday and Tuesday at Michigan State University.

"Manufacturing and Developing Wind Energy Systems in Michigan" aimed to link wind power companies with Michigan's manufacturing base, which is more than capable of building the mechanical guts of wind turbine systems.

It also offered a look at ideas and regulations for creating wind power businesses, and information from veteran wind entrepreneurs.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm was the event's Tuesday luncheon speaker, earning a standing ovation from a packed conference room for promising to pass this fall a "renewable portfolio standard" law for the state. Such laws, common in many other states, mandate that a certain percentage of a state's total energy consumption be generated from renewable sources by a certain future date.

Granholm said Michigan's long coastline -- longer than California's or Florida's, longer than any state except Alaska -- combined with its deep manufacturing expertise make Michigan one of the world's top prospects for generating wind power.

"Michigan is going green," Granholm said, adding that the state's strategy is to replace lost auto industry jobs with jobs in the renewable energy industry.

Granholm also touted the possibilities of offshore wind turbines that would also harness wave energy in the Great Lakes.

Earlier Tuesday, attendees got information on company formation from Mark Willers, a director at MinWind LLC in Lucerne, Minn., a company set up by 66 farmers with interests in wind power, corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel.

Also, breakfast keynoter James Walker, president-elect of the American Wind Energy Association, said wind can actually power all of the electrical and transportation needs of the United States.

Walker said the current electrical grid has a total capacity of 1,000 gigawatts -- but that 11,000 gigawatts of wind power could be harvested in the U.S. with current technology. That's enough to provide electricity for current uses, as well as for the eventual electrification of the nation's vehicle fleet.

Jack McCloughan, economic development liaison with the city of South Haven, spoke about his community's wind power partnership with Albermarle Corp. at a local chemical plant, while Wyandotte officials spoke of the Downriver city's "brownfield to windfield" project.

And Lisa Daniels, executive director of Windustry, in Minneapolis, led a review of Midwest community-based wind projects.

The event reached its capacity of 300 attendees five days before the event, according to the MSU Land Policy Institute, the host of the event, and almost all of those registrants showed up -- 280 dinners were served Monday night.

The event's other host sponsors were NextEnergy, the state's alternative energy industry accelerator, and the Michigan Economic Development Corp.

The event also featured exhibitors -- some you'd expect, such as Hybrid Design Services Inc., a Dearborn renewable energy system design firm, and Kent Power Inc., a renewable energy contractor in Kent City.

But some you wouldn't expect -- Diversified Tooling Group of Madison Heights, the law firm of Howard and Howard, the Ann Arbor marketing and business plan advisors Shepherd Advisors.

Currently, Michigan has just three functioning wind turbines -- two in Mackinaw City and one in Traverse City. But many more are on the drawing boards, in locations ranging from Huron County to Leelanau County to the northern shore of the Upper Peninsula.

Also, Western Michigan University plans to dedicate a wind turbine generator Friday at its College of Engineering on Kalamazoo's western border along US-131.

From: OUR MAN on the SCENE and IN THE TRENCHES!

Gentlemen,

AS you know, I attended the MSU wind energy conference on 9-10 and 9-11 where I represented SEND. The only organization attending the conference that was objectively representing K thru 20 education was SEND. Although there is a Michigan Wind Energy Research Collaborative (MIWERC) and they are a big part of the effort to install large wind energy in Michigan. Their focus is mainly on higher education with an emphasis on graduate type studies, I beleive this is the case although they need to be researched more. Their lead man is now going to be John D. Warbach, PHD of the MSU Land Policy Institute website www.landpolicy.msu.edu.

Probably the most immediately relevant contact that was established was with a Mr. Dilip K. Nigam, PE OF Analytical Design Service Corporation.Phone #734-761-2626 ext.223 and website of www.adsc-usa.com. They are the redesign developers of the Mackensie (Sp?) Bay Vertical Axis Wind Turbine.

They ostensibly hold the patent on this new design and we entered into preliminary negototiations about working collaboratively in the areas of research that SEND has put forth in the Marine and other applications. I also made some great contacts with financing groups such as Cleantech Group LLC of Brighton, Mich. website www.cleantech.com.

Although I was somewhat disappointed that I couldn't find one person in the room that knew about the STEM initiative, there wasn't many who hadn't heard about it by the time the conference was over. Also I didn't come across anyone who could not seemingly comprehend the need for linking up K-20 (and beyond) into real world learning environments such as we are proposing.

My main problem right now is that while I am trying to juggle the electrical work along with birthing SEND, this is all taking it's toll on my finances and sleep. The end result is my effectiveness is diminished in all areas. So my immediate goal is to break free from the gravity of the mundane from the financial aspects anyway. Any input?

Looking forward,

Jim B.

Conference shows strong interest in wind energy in Michigan
Michigan has a bright future in wind energy, according to attendees at a sold-out wind power conference in September at Michigan State University. "Manufacturing and Developing Wind Energy Systems in Michigan" aimed to link wind power companies with Michigan's manufacturing base, which is more than capable of building the mechanical guts of wind turbine systems. It also offered a look at ideas and regulations for creating wind power businesses, and information from veteran wind entrepreneurs. Jack McCloughan, economic development liaison with the city of South Haven, spoke about his community's wind power partnership with Albermarle Corp. at a local chemical plant, while Wyandotte officials spoke of the Downriver city's "brownfield to windfield" project. Currently, Michigan has just three functioning wind turbines -- two in Mackinaw City and one in Traverse City. But many more are on the drawing boards, in locations ranging from Huron County to Leelanau County to the northern shore of the Upper Peninsula.

Rethinking "Blank Slate" Design Metaphor Accomplishes "More for Less"

The New York Times
_____

September 11, 2007

Low Technologies, High Aims

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Beneath the bustling “infinite corridor” linking buildings at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just past a boiler room, an assemblage of tinkerers from 16 countries welded, stitched and hammered, working on rough-hewn inventions aimed at saving the world, one village at a time.

M.I.T. has nurtured dozens of Nobel Prize winners in cerebral realms like astrophysics, economics and genetics. But lately, the institute has turned its attention toward concrete thinking to improve the lives of the world’s bottom billion, those who live on a dollar a day or less and who often die young.

This summer, it played host to a four-week International Development Design Summit to identify problems, cobble together prototype solutions and winnow the results to see which might work in the real world.

Mohamed Mashaal, a young British engineer headed for a job with BP on the North Sea this fall, poured water into a handcrafted plastic backpack worn by a design partner, Bernard Kiwia, who teaches bicycle repair in rural Tanzania and hopes to offer women there an easier way to tote the precious liquid for long distances.

Sham Tembo, an electrical engineer from Zambia, and Jessica Vechakul, an engineering graduate student at M.I.T., slowly added a cow manure puree to a five-gallon bucket holding charcoal made from corncobs. In the right configuration, the mix might generate enough electricity to charge a cellphone battery or a small flashlight for a year or more.

The summit (www.iddsummit.org) was the brainchild mainly of Amy Smith, a lecturer at M.I.T. who received her master’s there in 1995 and in 2004 won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, and Kenneth Pickar, an engineering professor at the California Institute of Technology. Faculty and students from Olin College, an engineering school near Boston, were also involved.

The flurry of activity was taking place at D-Lab, a research center and set of courses at M.I.T. devoted to devising cheap technologies that could have a big effect in impoverished communities. In homage to Ms. Smith’s passion for attacking poverty from the ground up, the lab is nicknamed “Amy’s World.”

Typically, D-Lab sends students abroad in midwinter breaks to work with people who are struggling with a lack of clean water, electricity, cooking fuels or mechanical power to turn crops into products. For four weeks, though, the real world had come to M.I.T.

Throughout the workshop, Ms. Smith served as scoutmaster, cheerleader, cook and personal shopper (when work flowed deep into the night), and she provided periodic reality checks.

She seemed dazed at times, but never fazed. “Everyone calls this an experiment,” Ms. Smith said of the workshop, the first of its kind. “I call it the realization of a vision.”

The work itself was often two steps back, not one step forward. As Lhamotso, a young woman from Tibet, and Laura Stupin, who just graduated from Olin, wrestled with a whirring Rube Goldberg mash-up of bicycle and grain mill, the chain slipped with a loud clang.

“We have a real friction problem,” Ms. Stupin yelled.

The workshop was developed over the last year by Ms. Smith, Dr. Pickar and others after a meeting to discuss a “design revolution” — a shift in focus among companies, universities, investors and scientists toward attacking problems that hamper development in the world’s poorest places.

“Nearly 90 percent of research and development dollars are spent on creating technologies that serve the wealthiest 10 percent of the world’s population,” Ms. Smith said. “The point of the design revolution is to switch that.”

She added: “There are several different places where that revolution has to take place. We started thinking, ‘How do we train engineers so they might start thinking of this as a field of engineering they’d want to pursue?’ ”

Developing a pedal-powered grain mill or a backpack for water, as workshop participants did, was only a first step. The teams also had to be sure that their creations could be built of local materials cheaply enough to be bought by the world’s poorest people, that they could be fixed easily and fit ways of living that have deep-rooted rhythms.

The workshop began in mid-July, with the arrival of nearly 50 visitors from Brazil, Ghana, Guatemala, Tanzania, Tibet and other countries.

Most of the $200,000 budget was provided by donations from individuals and private groups, including the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, which supports university programs to develop commercially viable products that advance society.

The workshop began with a lecture by Paul Polak, a psychiatrist turned entrepreneur, who develops simple solutions for the problems of the poor. Dr. Polak, who has become something of a guru to the design revolution movement, railed against conventional charity and insisted that the route to prosperity lies in inventions that improve lives but mesh with existing lifestyles.

He laid out the principles of development from the bottom up, including the importance of first listening and watching, then following the old dictum “small is beautiful” with another, equally important one: “cheap is beautiful.”

The goal, he said, should be to improve a million lives, and to make technologies that can be sold and bought in increments — like a drip-irrigating system that can expand as a farmer’s income rises. Dr. Polak said in an interview that at least in the classroom, the push for such initiatives was coming from young people.

Ms. Smith said she wanted to avoid having the workshop end up as yet another academic exercise where the only outcome is often a set of paper proceedings or pledges. This time, she said, the goal was “no paper, just prototypes.”

In fact, in the first days of the workshop, it seemed that the only paper in evidence was an ever-spreading, flower-petal array of blue, green, pink and yellow sticky notes on walls and blackboards. The notes charted the progression from basic needs (water, food, energy, health) to specific issues (a three-mile hike to and from the nearest water supply in a Tanzanian village, the lack of a well-testing kit that a Bangladeshi village clinic could afford).

Ms. Smith placed participants in project teams. Then came round-table discussions, rough sketches, technical drawings and the first three-dimensional models.

Half a dozen volunteer mentors helped the participants make their ideas more concrete. Some were academics, like Ariel Phillips of Harvard, whose specialty is group dynamics. Others were drawn from Ms. Smith’s black book filled with an array of fixers and crafters — people whose careers have been spent solving problems by turning metal, plastic, wood, circuitry and motors into working devices. They included Dennis Nagle, a former weapons designer who abandoned the profession, he said, during the Summer of Love and turned to lighting design and other things, like the 24-ton array of speaker cabinets for a Guns N’ Roses concert.

The mentors’ task was making things work. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re on the verge of a Home Depot run,” announced Jock Brandis, who had driven to the workshop from Wilmington, N.C. After a career building contraptions on movie sets, Mr. Brandis now helps run the Full Belly Project, which develops machines to simplify village work.

Mr. Brandis noted that the budget for developing a peanut sheller for a Malian village was far different from that for building a camera-toting vehicle in rural Mexico to film Antonio Banderas galloping through the desert as Zorro. But the challenge of filling a niche with limited materials and tools is similar.

The other similarity is that both kinds of design begin with a blank slate. As Mr. Brandis put it: “It’s, ‘Here’s the model high-rise made of Styrofoam, and then the flying saucer has to fly into it, and we need to shoot it three times from three different angles, and next Tuesday it’s got to happen.’ ”

At the workshop, Mr. Brandis examined with approval one group’s design for an oven with three grates of progressively finer mesh to hold charcoal fuel, so that big pieces that have not burned down stay separate from more fully consumed fuel, limiting harmful smoke.

“What you try to do in virtually every situation is make their lives more efficient,” he said. “That’s what the big revolution in America was between 1860 and 1960 — that a person doing a day’s work can produce a lot more product. And that means time is more valuable and that means he has more time to do other things.”

Ashley Thomas, an entering senior at M.I.T., explained the appeal of such work while struggling with a teetering metal frame for a cooler that uses evaporation from wet fabric instead of electrical components to draw heat from its contents. The idea was conceived with participants from Tibet, where meat must be stored for weeks in isolated rural areas, and India, where heat can quickly ruin a vendor’s inventory.

“Imagine a fruit vendor in a rural area or the slums,” explained Deepa Dubey, a partner of Ms. Thomas, who studies product design as a graduate student in Kanpur, India. “He comes with all his fruit and vegetables. At the end of the day he makes one dollar, and whatever is left he has to throw it away because he can’t store it.”

Ms. Thomas said, “Amy’s class is about the hardest class to get into at M.I.T., including at the Sloan School, which is basically about how to make a million dollars after you graduate.”

She added: “It’s taking industrial design theory and applying it to where you can have the greatest impact. Here, $5 worth of angle iron and towels could mean a month’s supply of food. To me, that’s just worth so much more than spending that amount of time working on designing a slick new computer.”

From TEA LEAVES to CONVERSATION to SOLUTIONS!

---

September 8, 2007

Editorial

The Employment Tea Leaves

In the bad-news-is-good-news world of Wall Street, a lot of investors had been hoping for a lukewarm employment report yesterday because job weakness would help to ensure an interest rate cut when the Federal Reserve meets later this month. But not even the most self-interested could celebrate the report’s grim numbers.

Over all, employment contracted by 4,000 jobs in August, the first monthly decline in four years. The job-creation tallies for June and July were also revised downward, bringing average monthly job growth for the past three months to less than a third of what’s needed simply to absorb new people entering the job market.

Suddenly, analysts are talking about a possible recession. And that’s not good news for anybody.

Wall Street may well get its rate cut — the Fed will decide no later than Sept. 18. But the poor job numbers suggest that any bang a rate cut might give the financial markets would be muted by the apparent sharp slowing in the broader economy. Manufacturing and construction continued to lose jobs in August, a sadly common occurrence in today’s economy. But job growth in the professional and business sector, which includes employees in legal, accounting and management services, has also been very weak.

If there is any good news here it is that hardship may be setting the stage — in this pre-election year — for a national discussion about what needs to be done to fix the economy and help the increasingly squeezed middle class.

The Republicans will almost certainly renew their calls for tax cuts on investments and multimillion-dollar estates, arguing that such cuts would pump up the economy. But lower taxes for the rich would not benefit the middle class and would only worsen the budget deficit. Republicans may also continue to champion financial deregulation as a way to juice the economy. But that led to the housing bubble — and the current mortgage mess.

Democrats, or some Republicans with a change of heart, must articulate — and Americans must demand — a program for ensuring that the middle class gets a bigger share of the economy’s spoils than it has received during the Bush era, when gains have largely been funneled to the richest Americans.

To have a fairer and more inclusive economy, workers need true mobility, which requires health care reform. And they need to see a reversal in the country’s ever-deepening inequality, which could come about through more progressive income taxes, better public education and more help for workers whose jobs are displaced by globalization.

A few more months like August would make a recession likely. That would presumably focus the nation on the need for new economic priorities. But the unacceptable costs of staying the course are already clear. The sooner the debate heats up, the better.

Jim Bates Attending and Exhibiting on Behalf of S.E.N.D.

Big wind power conference coming to MSU Monday

When it comes to wind energy, why isn't Michigan a leader? After all, the state has 3,100 miles of mostly windswept Great Lakes shoreline, plenty of manufacturing plants capable of turning out the mechanical bearings, gearboxes, castings and forgings that are the guts of wind turbines, and engineering know-how developed over a century of industrial development. Next Monday and Tuesday, the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University takes a big step to change that at the first “Manufacturing and Developing Wind Energy Systems in Michigan” conference. More than 200 industrialists, utility industry executives, business leaders, policy specialists, researchers, and investors are expected to attend the two-day event. The intent of the conference is to stimulate the $20 billion global wind industry’s interest in settling in Michigan to design and manufacture generating equipment, and also to recruit companies to develop the state’s potential as a source of wind energy. More.

BEGIN With the END in MIND!

Leadership by Visualization

Science hasn't fully explained how or why visualization works.

But the fact that it does is enough for most major air forces in the world to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in flight simulators.

Frankly, if you're aiming to achieve a major goal, who cares if you know how or why visualization works - just that it does!

And there's no doubt that visualization is a proven success technique used by achievers in every field, from athletes to actors to astronauts. None other than golfing legend Jack Nicklaus is said to have always played a course in his mind before actually beginning a game. John Goddard, the number one goal achiever in the world, told me several months ago that visualization was one of the main techniques he used to accomplish more that 550 major goals!

Brian Tracy says that, "All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. Your mental pictures act as a guidance mechanism that causes you to act in ways that make your mental pictures come true in your life."

Last December we introduced a brand new tool as part of our Champions Club program. The Goal Tiger Vision Board is a very powerful application for your computer that enables you to take the teachings of the Law of Attraction and apply them in your daily life. It helps you to visualize your goals and dreams in a unique and dynamic way on your computer screen, using your personal dream images. You can combine these images with self chosen affirmations and power words. This way, the Goal Tiger Vision Board assists you in adjusting your belief system to break through any self limiting barriers you might have to reach your goals and create the life you desire.

Until now, the Goal Tiger Vision Board has only been available with membership in the Champions Club. But we've heard from a lot of our subscribers that they'd like to put the Vision Board to work to magnetically attract their goals and dreams.

So, with special permission from our software developers, for a limited time we are making the Goal Tiger Vision Board available as a stand-alone tool.

For a lot more details and all the benefits of the Goal Tiger Vision Board go here: http://www.goals-2-go.com/visualize/

"Get a Life......A Second Life!"

21st Century Digital Learning Environments!

Pennsylvania's "Classrooms for the Future" Program Increases

Aug 31, 2007, News Report

Two hundred-twenty-five more high schools will benefit from Pennsylvania's innovative Classrooms for the Future technology initiative this school year, bringing the total number of participating high schools to 358.

The expansion of the program means high school students in 303 of the state's 501 school districts will be able to begin using laptop computers and other high-tech tools to improve their learning and better prepare for future success.

"Classrooms for the Future is helping our high school students engage in learning on a new level," Governor Edward G. Rendell said. "The new technology will nurture students' minds and feed their appetite for learning and it will prepare them to use equipment and machines that are commonplace in colleges and universities, corporate offices, production plants and just about anywhere they will go after graduating.

"By using technology as a learning tool, we are ensuring Pennsylvania's workforce will remain relevant and competitive in the global economy."

Classrooms for the Future is a three-year investment to provide laptop computers, high-speed Internet access and state-of-the-art software to high school classrooms across the state. Under Rendell's plan, every high school would be part of Classrooms for the Future by 2009.

The 2007-08 budget signed by Rendell in July allocates $90 million to provide the 255 high schools with 83,000 laptop computers and related equipment. It also invests $11 million in high-quality professional development for 12,100 teachers in new Classrooms for the Future high schools. That money, coupled with $2 million in federal funds, will enable each Classrooms for the Future high school to receive $30,000 for staff development.

Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak said professional development is crucial to the success of Classrooms for the Future. As teachers learn how to integrate the technology into classroom instruction, they can move beyond being a mere lecturer and facilitate student-driven work.

The technology is being used in math, science, English and social studies classes to broaden the learning possibilities for Pennsylvania students and provide an unprecedented "gateway" to information and knowledge, the secretary added.

"After only one year, Classrooms for the Future already has proven to be a success for students and educators," Zahorchak said. "Teachers tell us students are more excited and engaged because of these new learning tools. In some cases, truancy and absenteeism are declining."

Greater student engagement is not the only benefit, he noted. Classrooms for the Future helps students connect their academic coursework to the real world, giving deeper meaning to what goes on both inside and outside the classroom.

As examples, the secretary cited a current events teacher who used Classrooms for the Future equipment to help her students stage a videoconference with a soldier serving in Iraq. In another classroom, a group of students studying bridge design used computer software to not only design structures but also to test them to determine whether they would work in a real-life application.

Such activities move students beyond being passive listeners and make them into active learners, Zahorchak said, while the professional development component of Classrooms for the Future ensures teachers are prepared to integrate high-technology into classroom instruction and activities.

Beyond Wind and Solar, a New Generation of Clean Energy

Beyond Wind and Solar, a New Generation of Clean Energy

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 1, 2007; A01

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon Iron Works has the feel of a World War II-era shipyard, with sparks flying from welders' torches and massive hydraulic presses flattening large sheets of metal. But this factory floor represents the cutting edge of American renewable-energy technology.

The plant is assembling a test buoy for Finavera Renewables, a Canadian company that hopes to harness ocean waves off the coast of Oregon to produce electricity for U.S. consumers. And Finavera is not Iron Works' only alternative-energy client: So many companies have approached it with ideas that it has created a "renewable-energy projects manager" to oversee them.

"In the last year, it's just exploded with ideas out there," said Vice President Chandra Brown. "We like to build these creative new things."

As policymakers promote alternative energy sources to reduce the United States' emissions of greenhouse gases and its dependence on foreign oil, entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly inventive about finding novel ways to power the economy.

Beyond solar power and wind, which is America's most developed renewable-energy sector, a host of companies are exploring a variety of more obscure technologies. Researchers are trying to come up with ways to turn algae into diesel fuel. In landfills, startups are attempting to wring energy out of waste such as leaves, tires and "car fluff" from junked automobiles.

This push for lesser-known renewables -- which also includes geothermal, solar thermal and tidal energy -- may someday help ease the country's transition to a society less reliant on carbon-based fuels. But many of these technologies are in their infancy, and it remains to be seen whether they can move to the marketplace and come close to meeting the country's total energy needs.

Some technologies are more advanced, though still small in the nation's overall energy mix. Nevada boasts 15 geothermal plants, with the capacity to generate enough electricity for 73,000 homes. California utilities are looking at solar technology that would use mirrors to heat water and spin turbines in desert power plants.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), whose Bainbridge Island home overlooks Puget Sound, said that after being thrashed around by the ocean as he kayaked near his house, he became convinced that efforts such as Finavera's could succeed.

"There's just such an enormous power out there," Inslee said, noting that there is nearly 900 times as much energy in a cubic meter of moving water as in a cubic meter of air. "I was wondering how we could capture that."

Finavera's chief executive, Jason Bak, believes he knows how. The equipment his company designed, called AquaBuOY, aims to generate electricity from the vertical motion of waves. The buoy, anchored in an array two to three miles offshore, will convert the waves' motion into pressurized water using large, reinforced-rubber hose pumps. As the buoy goes up the peak of a wave and down into its trough, it forces a piston in the bottom of the buoy to stretch and contract the hose pumps, pushing water through. This drives a turbine that powers a generator producing electricity, which would be shipped to shore through an undersea transmission line.

"This is the new source of power," Bak said. "It's the highest-energy-density renewable out there. Wind is like light crude oil, and water is like gasoline."

In many cases, Americans are working with overseas experts who have more experience developing renewable energy. This month, Iceland America Energy -- a partnership between Icelandic and U.S. entrepreneurs -- will start drilling just west of California's Salton Sea to build a geothermal power plant to supply Pacific Gas and Electric with 49 megawatts of electricity by 2010.

Magn?s J?hannesson, Iceland America's chief executive, said the facility will pump naturally heated water from underground, run it through turbines to generate electricity and re-inject it into the earth, "making it a renewable, giant battery that can run for 20, 30, 50 years."

Iceland America has several other U.S. geothermal projects in the works, including a potential second Salton Sea plant that would serve Los Angeles and a home-heating plant for the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

"There's huge potential for geothermal energy in this country, especially on the West Coast," J?hannesson said.

It is hard to predict what portion of the country's needs could be met by these emerging technologies. The United States is already the world's largest producer of geothermal electricity, with 212 plants generating 3,119 megawatts. A panel convened by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded in a recent report that by 2050, geothermal plants could produce 100 gigawatts, which would be equivalent to 10 percent of current U.S. electricity capacity.

"That level would make it comparable to the current capacity of all our nuclear power plants or all our hydroelectric plants," wrote the panel's chair, MIT chemical engineering professor Jefferson W. Tester, in an e-mail.

A 2005 report by the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry consortium, said there is "significant" wave energy potential along America's coasts, predicting that it, too, could eventually generate as much electricity as the entire hydropower sector.

Both the Bush administration and Congress are promoting renewable energy through a mix of federal largesse and mandates.

Last month the House passed, as part of its energy bill, a requirement that by 2020, renewable energy must account for at least 15 percent of private utilities' energy supply, and authorized $50 million for marine energy research over the next five years.

Over the next two years, the Energy Department will offer up to $13 billion in loan guarantees for energy ventures that "avoid, reduce or sequester air pollutants and greenhouse gases," said department spokeswoman Julie Ruggiero, "to make new and emerging clean-energy technologies cost-competitive with traditional sources of energy."

Still, it will be years before many of these projects will come on line. Oregon Iron Works is nearly done constructing the AquaBuOY prototype, which will be 72 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter, and Finavera hopes to install it off the Oregon coast as early as next week. After testing the technology and applying for the necessary federal permits, Finavera officials hope that by 2010 or 2011 they can operate two wave parks -- one off Bandon, Ore., and another off Trinidad, Calif. -- that would each span two to three square miles and produce 100 megawatts, enough for 35,000 homes. They plan to start up another wave-power operation in British Columbia around the same time.

Operating equipment in the hostile environment of the ocean poses challenges, however. Josh Pruzek, who oversees government contracts as military marine manager at Oregon Iron Works, said the company uses high-grade steel that is less vulnerable to corrosion, and designs parts to be easily maintained.

The power of moving water can also overwhelm high-tech equipment. In December, Verdant Power placed turbines off New York City's Roosevelt Island amid much fanfare, promising to harness the tides of the East River and convert that energy into electricity. By last month, all six of the turbines, battered by the current's strength, had been shut down. The company is repairing and redesigning its equipment.

Still, such projects are popular with politicians across the nation, from New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D), who is hoping to make his state a breeding ground for renewable-energy projects. David Van't Hof, Kulongoski's sustainability policy adviser, said government officials are exploring ideas, from solar projects on the eastern side of the state to biomass energy culled from Oregon's forests, in an effort to generate 25 percent of the state's energy from renewable sources by 2025.

"Wind's going to continue to be the king, both in Oregon and the nation, for the next five years," Van't Hof said, but that will last only for so long. "People are already asking, 'What's next after wind?' "

Staff writer Steven Mufson in Washington contributed to this report.

Well NOW!

The ABCs Of Fast Growth

Area Tech Firms Plug Into Education

By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 30, 2007; D01

Fairfax County school officials this fall are carrying BlackBerrys that connect to a database of student information, including parent contacts and medical warnings. Dartmouth students are using wikis, blogs, podcasts and other interactive media tools for their courses. A graduate school at Carnegie Mellon has bought new, Web-based software to administer financial aid.

The initiatives are all the work of Washington-area businesses -- part of a wave of education technology companies that have emerged in the region in recent years. Defywire, based in Herndon, makes the mobile database software that is being used by Fairfax schools. Learning Objects, in the District, sold Dartmouth the Web products, and Regent Education of Frederick created the financial aid software.

All told, more than 20 education technology companies have set up shop in greater Washington. Some cater to universities, others to local school systems. Some help educators manage big budgets and intricate bureaucracies; others provide tools for use in the classroom -- or, in some cases, seek to replace the classroom altogether.

What many of the companies share, executives say, is fast growth and a belief that schools will increasingly come to rely on technology, trends that they hope could be attractive to high-powered investors.

"The volume of opportunity in education technology is far greater than it was five years ago," said Frank Bonsal III, a Baltimore venture capitalist. He is trying to raise money to start a fund to invest in education companies.

One test of the sector's strength could come soon as a Herndon company called K12, a provider of online curricula, attempts to go public. Company executives declined to comment on their plans as federal regulators review their registration, filed late last month, to hold a $172.5 million initial public offering. The application said that sales at the company increased from $71.4 million in 2004 to $116.9 million in 2006.

Several company executives cited Blackboard, an education software behemoth based in the District, as a catalyst for new ventures. The company, they say, is evidence that an education software company can prosper. Venture capitalists have long been wary of putting money into these companies because school budgets are notoriously unpredictable and changing political priorities can affect the decisions of administrators.

Blackboard was founded in 1997 by a few 20-somethings who quit comfortable jobs to start the company. The dot-com boom swept up Blackboard, and it weathered the subsequent bust before going public. Last year, it had sales of $180 million.

"There's this whole new emerging category of academic technology that's just started to be invested in by universities," said Michael Chasen, Blackboard's chief executive. "That's helping to spawn new types of companies."

Those companies include firms started or populated by former Blackboard executives.

An original member of the team that founded Blackboard, Greg Davies, left to start Presidium Learning in 2003. He was looking to provide technical support to universities, which, he figured, would need help as they increased their investments in information technology.

At the beginning, Presidium had a few hundred thousand dollars in contracts, much of it acquired through Blackboard. "They've provided us with strong partnerships and access to their sales team," Davies said. Last year, Presidium did more than $10 million in sales.

Derek Hamner and Hal Herzog, founders of Learning Objects, are two other Blackboard alumni who have left the company but continue to capitalize on its software.

Learning Objects builds extensions to Blackboard's best-known product, a system that allows schools to manage their courses online. Specialized Web sites allow teachers to post reading lists, homework and other materials, and students can submit their work.

Learning Objects' software allows professors to use wikis, blogs, podcasts and other new media tools. "Students go out into the real world, and instead of coming back to class, they'll keep a journal or a reflective blog related to their experience that they can share" with their class, Hamner said.

Jill Stelfox, a former wireless executive and self-described "crazed mother," created Defywire in 2003 to allow teachers, coaches and other school officials to use their BlackBerrys and handheld devices to access information on students from a school's central database.

Venture capitalists have been impressed by the idea, in use in 40 school districts. Intersouth Partners of Durham, N.C., Amplifier Venture Partners of McLean and Anthem Capital of Baltimore have poured $17 million into the company.

Novak Biddle and Updata Partners of Reston have invested in Spectrum K-12, which makes special education software. The software is used to keep tabs on 6 million of the 44 million special education students in the country and is used in Montgomery and Loudoun counties.

The local market does not come without challenges. Bonsal, the Baltimore venture capitalist, said fellow investors are skeptical about putting money into education start-ups, although they are willing to back more-developed companies.

Ed Meehan, an Oakton venture capitalist who follows the education market closely, said the incentives for innovation in education technology are not the same as in other markets.

"The people who are making the purchasing often gain no personal benefit by picking a cool new technology," he said.

Even the big guys can feel the pressure. Blackboard may one day find itself squaring off against competitors offering similar course-management solutions at far reduced costs. One such technology, called Moodle, is free. Some companies have created businesses around hosting and supporting Moodle operations -- at, say, $1 a student. Martin Knott, chief executive of such a service, called MoodleRooms, said his two-year-old company grew at a rate of 1,500 percent last year, to 350 clients, and is expected to quintuple in size this year. UCLA recently switched to Moodle as its course-management software.

Oakland Wireless and Wireless Washtenaw!

Oakland, Washtenaw wireless systems coming soon

Posted on 8/30/2007 8:45:39 AM Municipal wireless projects in Oakland and Washtenaw counties should be complete in 2008 and will offer considerable economic development benefits, officials of the two counties told a Great Lakes IT Report - WWJ Newsradio 950 breakfast Thursday. The systems, Wireless Oakland and Wireless Washtenaw, will offer particular advantages for rural areas in western Washtenaw and northern Oakland counties, which are currently limited to broadband. "West of Zeeb Road, we don't have access" to broadband, Washtenaw County deputy county executive and CIO David Beehan said during the event. He said business owners in western Washtenaw are telling the county, "We only have dial-up, and it's killing us." Beehan and Phil Bertolini, Oakland County deputy executive and CIO, outlined their respective counties' progress toward free wireless Web access to a crowd of about 100 at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield. Bertolini said the inspiration for the project came from a 2004 visit by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson to Dubai, which has universal Web access. "Brooks said there's four square miles of Dubai, there's 910 square miles of Oakland County -- make it so," Bertolini said. Both counties' projects involve no government investment or ownership. Instead, the counties are making government assets such as power poles and radio towers available for free to a private sector partner that provides the actual service. A basic level of service -- 128 kilobits per second, about twice as fast as dial-up -- is provided free, with higher speeds available at a price. The provider also gets advertising revenue from a portal start page that all users begin at. In Oakland County, those upsell rates and prices range from $19.95 a month for 512 kilobits per second download speed to $39.95 a month for 1.5 megabits per second. Berolini said Wireless Oakland's Phase I has covered 18.5 square miles, an area comprised of 35,000 households and businesses. So far, 11,000 of them have signed up -- far exceeding the county's initial projection of a 5 percent signup rate. Of the 11,000, about 200 are paying for higher speeds, Bertolini added. Bertolini said Wireless Oakland is currently developing its rollout schedule for the rest of the county, which should be complete by the end of 2008. Roughly the same schedule is in effect for Washtenaw County, which has a 15-square-mile pilot system operating in Saline, Manchester and downtown Ann Arbor. In Washtenaw, though, only 300 have signed up. Both counties said government is one of the "anchor tenants" of the system and will use it extensively. And Bertolini said the system is already paying off in terms of economic development. "We already have companies contacting Oakland County and saying that part of the reason we are looking to locate in Oakland County is that the county is building a wireless network across 910 square miles," Bertolini said. Behen said Washtenaw County got its inspiration not from Dubai, but from the fact that the private sector simply doesn't seem interested in providing broadband to rural areas. "I'm not going to argue with the private sector," Behen said. "But in my position as deputy county administrator and CIO, I have to think a little bigger, and think about the quality of life for those areas." Both plans also include programs to bridge the digital divide, once the wireless network is up and running. The counties will be providing free or low-cost computers and training for low-income residents. Both speakers also said they're watching the development of WiMax technology carefully, but that it's still years away from widespread use. Oakland County is already using WiMax for backhaul, Bertolini said.

ADD This to our PORTFOLIO?

Renewable Power Plays

Clean-Energy Investors Need One Eye On Returns and the Other on Congress

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 26, 2007; F01

The planet isn't the only thing heating up because of climate change. Some renewable-energy stocks have been pretty hot, too.

Shares of Vestas Wind Systems, the world's biggest maker of wind turbines, have doubled in the past year despite the market's latest turmoil. The Danish company is ramping up production in its two biggest markets, China and the United States, and expects sales to rise 17 percent this year. Last week its shares got a boost after it reported that profit had jumped fivefold in the most recent quarter.

Vestas, which is listed on the Copenhagen stock exchange, might seem a perfect place to invest for an era of global climate change. The fortunes of many firms are tied to changes in the Earth's temperatures and to the evolving legislative climate, and that can present an array of investment opportunities -- as well as pitfalls. There are builders of nuclear power plants, traditional utilities, wind turbine manufacturers, solar companies, biofuel firms and light bulb makers.

"This is not a social or moral issue only. It's an investment issue," said Edward Kerschner, chief investment strategist at Citigroup. "Whether or not you believe in climate change is not germane to how you invest your money."

But before jumping in, investors would be wise to carefully study the companies involved. As attractive as Vestas might seem, it has already had a strong run, lifting its price to a lofty level. Its future profit would have to keep rising to justify its share price. And Vestas faces hurdles. Wind turbines use hundreds of parts that are in limited supply, raising the specter of bottlenecks despite strong demand. The company also depends in large measure on continued government subsidies. What's more, it faces stiff competition as companies like General Electric and Siemens expand and take aim at Vestas's market-leading position.

Investors also need to pay close attention to action in Congress. The final details of climate change legislation, such as whether to auction or distribute carbon-dioxide emission allowances, could turn some companies from losers to winners, or vice versa.

One thing a lot of analysts agree on: Some kind of regulation or tax for emissions is coming. Though not the most potent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is the most common, accounting for 77 percent of the gases. And since carbon dioxide is produced by the most common forms of energy use -- coal, oil and natural gas -- that could alter a wide range of behavior and investments.

LTU / Municipal Wireless! (Blind-spot Opporutnity)

Join WWJ Newsradio 950

Technology Editor Matt Roush
for a lively, informal discussion on
Municipal Wireless

• What's the current state of projects in Oakland and Washtenaw counties?
  

• Why have they been delayed beyond initial timetables?

• What technological challenges are the counties and their contractors facing?
  

• What kind of service can citizens andbusinesses expect? What will be the economic impact?
  

Speakers will include:

Phil Bertolini ~ Oakland County Deputy County Executive & CIO
David Behen ~ Washtenaw County IT Director

Thursday, August 30, 2007
Lawrence Technological University
UTLC Gallery
21000 W. 10 Mile, Southfield, MI 48075

Registration and Continental Breakfast 7:30 AM
Discussion 8 - 9 AM

Sustainble Pioneer seeks Solitude to Ponder Yet Unimagined Futures!

Ovshinsky retiring from ECD

Posted on 8/23/2007 2:05:48 PM A true Michigan technology pioneer is stepping down from the company he helped create. Rochester Hills-based Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: ENER) Thursday announced that Stanford R. Ovshinsky, its co-founder, principal inventor, chief scientist and technologist, will retire as an active employee and director of the company effective August 31, 2007. Ovshinsky and his late wife Iris, with whom he co-founded ECD in 1960, developed the science and technology of amorphous and disordered materials, and his pioneering work in the field has enabled commercial products in energy generation. Included: *Thin-film triple-junction photovoltaics and building-integrated photovoltaics *Energy storage, including Ovonic nickel-metal-hydride batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles and consumer applications; and *Information technology, including phase-change optical media and electronic memories. Ovshinsky also developed roll-to-roll continuous manufacturing technology for semiconductors, including photovoltaics and other products. Ovshinsky holds more than 350 United States and foreign patents and is the author of more than 275 scientific papers ranging from neurophysiology to amorphous semiconductors. He has been widely recognized for his important contributions in photovoltaics, the hydrogen economy and in nanoscience and nanostructures. His many awards include the Diesel Gold Medal for Invention from the German Inventors Association, the Coors American Ingenuity Award, the Toyota Award for Advancement, and the 2005 Innovation Award for Energy and the Environment by The Economist. In 1999, he was named a "Hero for the Planet" by Time magazine. Also, Ovshinsky and his late wife were named as Heroes of Chemistry 2000 by the American Chemical Society. "Iris and I started ECD based on our shared vision of using science and technology to solve important societal problems, such as the increasing global demand for energy," Ovshinsky said. "Over the years, many of our ideas have become a reality and are being used by people all over the world. I now want to fully reengage in research and development activities, concentrating on the further development of amorphous and disordered materials and future advances in the energy and information fields. I am proud of what ECD has accomplished and expect the company to continue to grow and prosper in the years ahead." Said Bob Stempel, ECD chairman and CEO: "Words cannot do justice to the lasting work of Stan and Iris that resulted in ECD's growth over these many years. Stan's passion for the work created an environment of high energy and full dedication across the organization. Under his leadership and tutelage, hundreds of employees have learned the science and technology of amorphous and disordered materials and contributed to ECD's many successes. All of us at ECD, and his many friends and colleagues the world over, wish Stan the very best as he continues his work." Ovshinsky intends to maintain an office in the metro Detroit area and will continue to be available to ECD to advise on technical and scientific matters. He also intends to continue to advise Ovonyx Inc. on phase change memory technology. More about the company he built at www.ovonic.com.

"Three Legs on the Probverbial Stool"

BEGINNINGS

I am not trying to write a book here , just commit to paper some common ground from which to put together a direction for some ideas. Please add to or delete anything. I believe that We can develop a model here that can be developed anywhere.

This document is about the beginnings of a new approach towards creating a sustainable way of life in the context of a disintegrating societal structure. A general approach towards this beginning might have some of the following ideas.

A. Education This must be the groundwork for developing any kind of cooperative effort that is capable of sustaining direction, cooperation and momentum. In order for a community to be self sustaining and flourish there must be a system of learning what it takes to live and work within the natural and man made world in which we live.

In these villages that opens up the fields of knowledge in Teaching, farming, construction trades, civil, electrical mechanical and chemical engineering. All of these skills need to be understood and taught in the context of how they interrelate in the circles of life’s interdependencies. Of course a community may be limited in it’s ability to train and keep busy any one of these trained individuals so it becomes clear that people need to be cross trained. Also it stands to reason that a cooperative effort to work together as different communities to pool the resources is in everyone’s best interest. So it may be most efficient say to have a school at one community where people are trained in constructing and operating a large wind turbine or another may be in constructing and operating “Living machines”. This does not preclude a person from always learning on the job so to speak it is just that there are resources allocated for an intensive education that are not necessary everywhere.

B. Co-housing Intentional communities and eco-villages. It is imperative that humanity decrease its footprint on this planet as quickly as possible. These types communities allow people to live together in smaller villages that are excellently suited to a distributed generation energy model. They also lend themselves to intensive organic farming with efficient energy systems utilization.

C. “Renewable energies” there are many ways to utilize energy. It is generally understood that there is no new energy, it is only utilized in different ways. For Our useful intent of the word renewable is that any energy utilized is done so In the context of within the natural life cycles that are friendly towards supporting life within which all peoples, animals and plants may flourish . This is done by respecting these life cycles and encouraging proliferation of all conditions that would support this life. Any created energy system should be able to operate a s part of a closed loop recycled activity that mimics nature as closely as possible. Energy in human terms is generally understood as the ability to perform useful work. Empirically that may be framed within the reference of measurement of any force utilized to accomplish a task. For renewable energy though it must be the efficient utilization of natural forces. These are the natural energies that were given to us with this planet. They are of course the solar energies that give us heat, light, wind, photosynthesis, magnetism, oxygen, rain and other weather. It is an understatement to look at solar energy just as a measurement of the PV output of a solar panel or the deliverable BTU’s from a DSHW panel. So lets search for the beginnings of a sustainable community development and use that as a model from which to create other communities that may honor this life We’ve been given.

The basic premise for design of such a community needs to start with an analysis of energy management and conservation. To start with when designing any structure whether it be a home, office, factory, school or garden for that matter, one needs to maximize the solar gain in ways that would best capture the sun’s energy for either heating or cooling or in the case of wind and hydro to perform other useful work. The efficient use of passive solar design with architecture cannot be overstated occurring energy, be it solar or a natural chemical process marshaled to accomplish work that may be used to sustain life. So our goal needs to be to design living systems that need only to use these energies to the minimum extent possible. Meaning that when a building is designed effectively it would be oriented towards effective solar gain, be effectively insulated and maximize use of structural design for convective heating and cooling.

List of potential technologies proposed to be developed on Mohawk lands. (and anywhere else)

Wind turbine- both electrical and mechanical. Can be used to generate electricity, pump water, run air compressors, grind grains etc.

Hydro- can be used for work the same as the wind except can also be used as a carrier of thermal energy for heating and cooling.

Agriculture- organic food and medicinal products production, E-85 methanol, biodigesters for methane, biomass for energy (corn, switch grass, waste wood, etc.)

Waste to energy generation- gasification and burning of wastes from garbage dumps, human, other animal (farm ) and agricultural wastes.

Solar- passive solar, active solar with emphasis first on Domestic solar hot water use for heating space and potable water.

CREATING COMMUNITY FAIR

­ ­ ­ May 19th,2007

The Intent of the fair is to show practical applications and solutions by which people and communities may be empowered with to transform the way they interact as individuals and communities.

This is designed to be a three day event with the itinerary looking something like the following,
( although this is just preliminary), looks like Friday evening start out with some music, food and maybe a dance, Saturday will be the main focus of renewable and sustainable showcase of theories, practices, technologies and services. In general a showcase of tools available to build a sustainable community upon.

What is intended to make this different from most other renewable energy fairs, is that they normally showcases cutting edge commerce (nice stuff) which by themselves are nothing more than a better mousetrap.This fair is intended to be comprehensive in that it will place an emphasis on how to recreate community in a truly sustainable way.

Now in the Native American Community that means to understand that in the context of seven generations. To understand where we have been for the past three generations, where we are now and where we are going for the next three generations. So to recap we are talking about a comprehensive plan for an objective sociological understanding of community development, along with the development of technologies using Natural Capital resources and complementary monetary systems.

The plan is to have experts give workshops on various other aspects of sustainable community design in everything from; Participative educational systems to green building and land use design to sustainable agriculture and renewable energy cooperatives (Black Oaks-Voyager Energy Cooperative), etc. etc..

A great part of the focus is to include as many intentional communities as possible and to invite people from unintentional communities to investigate sustainable and better ways of life.

Sunday will see a winding down of vendors and their booths and will focus on a recap of workshops and then will breakout into specialty areas on which topics have yet to be decided. We can look into having world wide webcam coverage also so as to include the rest of the world community.

There is a great opportunity for synergy and we can consider sistering with sustainable movements taking place in Africa such as the project at Gorogosa National Park in Mozambique.

We can look into sistering with them to help each other make it a reality and to show the naysayers how to get onboard this train also. Because it will take agreement of the whole world to save us.

I look forward to discussing the possibilities with You and would appreciate any feedback on the scope of this fair along with potential interest in working together to make it happen. Maybe this is something we can run by the Clinton Foundation for the funding that is needed.

In god we trust all others have to show us!

Thanks,

Jim Bates

renewable@ic.org

VIRTUAL NATURAL CAPITAL

01/24/2005

Ecotopia, Brazil.

Posted by jay babcock

The World’s Best Managed City

by Neal R. Peirce


Curitaba, Brazil –It rains a lot in this provincial capital of 2.4 million, 220

miles southwest of San Paulo. There’s a large needy population, swollen each month

by 1,700 peasants flowing in from the countryside. The city’s architecture is unexceptional.


But look across the continents and you’ll not likely find a better managed city.

And not due to some tight, buttoned-down management scheme. But rather because Curitaba,

since urban visionary Jaime Lerner became its mayor in 1971, has pioneered one

Remarkable social or physical innovation after another.


Curitiba’s remarkably fast and efficient bus system accommodates 1.9 million bus

passengers each weekday — more than New York City. Downtown has delightful pedestrian-

Only street. To foster equity, small-scale, low-income dwellings (rather than high-rise

housing ghettoes) have been spotted across the city.

This is a great stab into de-gentrification. The city retains land throughout it’s boundaries and each family or individual has the opportunity to sit down with an Architect and pick one of five small but efficient and comfortable house designs, they are give the opportunity to take a low interest loan and a piece of the publicly owned land and build a personal piece of security. Along with the ability to have the opportunity to plant a garden in publicly owned green spaces. People would be able to exchange city currencies (the rate of exchange of such a currency could be an indicator of the “health” of the individual cities plan)they earned in exchange for picking up trash, recycling or performing any number of community building tasks that help to revitalize the area. This plan needs to be placed before Our city councils (Detroit or Chicago first) in the U.S. (modified of course).

An extensive new park and lake system covers 18 percent of the city’s land area,

doubling as a much-needed flood protection scheme (so that the ducks, it’s quipped,

just float a meter higher after rains). Over 1,100 tax-relieved private woodlands

allow rain to soak in where it falls. Volunteer citizens, since the 70s, have planted

over 1.5 million trees along streets and avenues.


Curitiba invented “Lighthouses of Knowledge.” Fifty of them, brightly colored, glassy

lighthouse-shaped towers, are spotted through the neighborhoods, providing thousands

of books and now Internet connections for citizens aged 3 to 80.(Why not here?) Another

innovation:

“Citizenship Streets” — two-storied pedestrian malls, located beside the heavily-used

bus terminals, offering clusters of city services from job training to day care,

gyms to small claims courts.


Lerner, now governor of Parana, Curitiba’s state, and potential Brazilian presidential

candidate, reminds a visitor that Curitiba has the problems of all Latin American

cities, tough slums included. The apparent difference: the fundamental

respect for all citizens, the poorest included, that he and his team of architect-

planner associates have sought to build over three decades.


Citizens who are shown respect with health clinics, good buses, decent schools,

insists Lerner, accept “co-responsibility.” They’re willing to build their own simple

housing, especially with a little architectural counsel and utility connections.

They volunteer for environmental projects. They start cottage industries. Civic

society flourishes.


Most families and firms now presort their trash, and 70 percent is recycled or composted.

In the slums, or favelas, where refuse vehicles can’t negotiate unpaved alleys,

small trucks fan out in a massive “Green Exchange.” For bags of sorted trash, tens

of thousands of the city’s poorest receive bags of rice, beans, eggs, bananas, carrots

that the city buys inexpensively from the area’s surplus production. The result’s

both better public health (less litter, rats, disease) and better nutrition.


Green Exchange exemplifies Curitiba’s penchant for solutions that are “simple, fast,

fun and cheap,” write Paul Hawken, Amore and Hunger Lovins in their new book, Natural

Capitalism. The city is thus benefiting from a flow of interconnected, interactive,

evolving solutions.


Lerner explains his distaste for “creativity killers” — a type of person “you can

smell in meetings,” who insists on having all the answers before any project can

start. That’s wrong, he insists: “Creativity means certain risks. It’s important

to start, then make changes. The ideal can easily be the enemy of the possible.”


Lerner and Curitiba’s present mayor, Cassio Taniguch, split their days. Mornings

are a jungle-like retreats on the edge of parks, talking big ideas that might change

many lives.?? In the afternoon, by contrast, they’re in their official offices meeting

constitutions. “You need a daily balance,” says Lerner.


But where do all the ideas come from, and how do they get coordinated. The answer’s

“IPPUC” — the city’s research and urban planning institute, now 35 years old. It’s

a rare phenomenon among world cities — an official city institute that’s intellectual

on one side, management-focused on the other. The mayor, department heads and staff

involved in currently hot issues meet there ever Thursday for a frank exchange on

how to keep multiple city projects moving.


So does it matter if a city has imaginative leadership over years. One shred of

evidence — surveys show 99 percent of Curitibans (as opposed, for example, to 60

percent of New Yorkers) wouldn’t want to live elsewhere.


Lerner recounts a 90s meetings with Renault officials at his jungle office. Parana

wasn’t even on their list for a Brazilian expansion site.?? Suddenly, a hummingbird

flew in and alighted on the table. “We had no contract with that bird,” says Lerner.

But clearly Curitiba’s quality of life, its spirit and imagination, was key in drawing

Renault, and then equally coveted Chrysler and Volkswagen/Audi plants, to the province.


But the auto plants have been located outward, with the stated goal of sharing

Curitiba’s prosperity with its entire province. Expanding its focus to regional

Collaboration — the first great challenge for 21st century cities.

Potential Education Project

REVIEW: Michigan Energy Education Network
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/cis/CIS_EO_MEENet_188115_7.pdf

NEXT "MEEN" Meeting:

The next Michigan Energy Education Network meeting will be Friday, Sept. 14, 9:00-3:00 at the Energy Office, 611 W. Ottawa, Lansing. At Harold Glasser’s urging, we are going to try something new – open space planning and strategic thinking related to energy education and possible collaboration. That’s a bunch of words. Let me try to explain. Open space planning is where you don’t have a pre-set agenda. The participants determine the topics to be discussed. I mention strategic thinking because we’re not an organization doing strategic planning, but some of our strategic thinking could lead to plans and collaboration. At the beginning participants will spend some time identifying topics to discuss and then we will break into smaller groups to discuss the topics in more detail. We may be done by noon. Maybe not, but we will take a lunch break.

To find me and Pat, you can take I-496 to Martin Luther King Dr. exit and take a right (coming from Detroit) or left (coming from Grand Rapids) going north. When you see the Hall of Justice to your right, take another right on to Allegan. Very soon you will take a left into a visitors’ parking lot. When you get out of your car and look toward the Capital my building, the Ottawa Building, will be in front of you to the left. Once you enter the building ask the security guard to call me at 241-6280, Pat at 241-6154, or Alice at 241-6228.

Please RSVP by Sept. 7 if you plan to attend. See you on the 14th

GREAT LAKES "WIKI"

Great Lakes "Wiki"
http://www.greatlakeswiki.org/index.php/Main_Page

DTE WIND FARM

DTE green power program starts West Michigan wind farm

Posted on 8/16/2007 8:01:12 AM The Detroit utility holding company DTE Energy announced Thursday it has signed a long-term agreement with Michigan-based Heritage Sustainable Energy LLC to provide wind power for DTE’s GreenCurrents renewable energy program. The 10-year agreement will enable Heritage to build a new 6,500-acre wind farm near Richland in Kalamazoo County. Introduced earlier this year, GreenCurrents offers DTE Energy’s 2.2 million electric customers the option of choosing environmentally friendly renewable energy for their homes and businesses. “A key element of the GreenCurrents program is to encourage the development and operation of new renewable energy projects in Michigan,” said Trevor F. Lauer, vice president of marketing for DTE Energy. “We want the energy resources for GreenCurrents to be homegrown – and we’re happy to say that we’ve signed a long-term agreement with a developer who shares that vision.” The agreement with DTE Energy has allowed Heritage Sustainable Energy to begin construction of Stoney Corners Wind Farm, which will start up with two 2.5 megawatt Fuhrlander 2500 wind turbines. The farm is expected to be in operation as early as March, with an ultimate capacity planned to be in excess of 100 megawatts. “It is particularly gratifying that DTE Energy is purchasing renewable energy credits on its own initiative prior to Michigan legislative action on the issue," said Marty Lagina, president of Rock Management Group, the managing partner of Heritage Sustainable Energy. "DTE Energy’s decision to partner with us will get us started. We look forward to the state of Michigan taking additional action to encourage the growth of the wind energy business in our state.” Under the GreenCurrents program, DTE Energy’s Detroit Edison electric customers can select an option to promote renewable energy while best fitting their budget. Customers can choose to purchase a block of renewable energy for $2.50 a month that's equal to 15 to 20 percent of a typical home’s monthly electric usage. Customers also can choose to match 100 percent of their home’s electricity consumption with renewable resources by paying an extra two cents per kilowatt hour, which works out to an extra $10 to $15 per month for a typical household. Business customers can purchase a 1,000 kilowatt hour block of green energy for an extra $20 a month – or match all of their electricity usage with renewable energy for an additional cost of two cents per kilowatt hour. “Every customer who signs up for GreenCurrents will play a significant role in shaping the future of sustainable energy in Michigan,” Lauer said. “By increasing the development of renewable energy projects, our customers can help us meet the electricity demands of today without sacrificing the needs of future generations.” Lauer added that DTE Energy is working on agreements with two Michigan bioenergy developers and expects to finalize those contracts soon. Additional information on the GreenCurrents program is available at www.GreenCurrents.com, or by calling (866) 207-6955.

Thank You for PARTICIPATING in this Virtual Community!

August 15, 2007

Building Virtual Communities

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

from Technology & Learning

Online communities of practice are central to 21^st century professional development. In this excerpt from techlearning.com, an expert shares her views—and we invite yours.

Author, consultant, and social learning theorist Etienne Wenger describes virtual learning communities as electronic communities of practice where you find groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion for a topic. These communities deepen their knowledge and expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis. According to Wikipedia, traditional communities of practice are "based around situated learning in a colocated setting." In the blogosphere however, we see community developed not by common location, but through pockets of common interest.

Capacity Building

I spend a lot of time participating in communities online. I have had the opportunity to see some of the best and some of the worst in action. I am thankful for the new electronic models of professional growth that inspire me daily to think and collaborate differently. The diversity of ideas and thoughts represented in my community 21^st Century Collaborative push the boundaries of my thinking as I share knowledge and do my part to advocate for educational reform.

The way I see it, social networking tools have the potential to bring enormous leverage to teachers at relatively little cost. The burning question: How can we accelerate the adoption and full integration of 21^st century teaching and learning strategies in schools today?

What Makes a Community Successful?

A burgeoning body of opinion suggests virtual learning communities are becoming the venue through which agents for change operate. The potential is enormous, as knowledge capital is collected and the community becomes a sort of online brain trust, representing a highly varied accumulation of expertise. However, successful virtual learning communities are hard to come by, and many seem to fade away almost as soon as they get started. This past June at the EduBloggerCon at NECC several online community leaders tried to think about components and attributes of successful learning communities. The following are tips and tricks garnered from my lessons learned as I have created and led virtual learning communities for various purposes over the last seven years.

The Community Organizer

Typically, community organizers foster member interaction, provide stimulating material for conversations, keep the space organized, and help hold members accountable to the stated community guidelines, rules, or norms. They also build a shared culture by passing on community history and rituals. Perhaps most important, community organizers are keenly aware of how to empower participants to do these things for themselves. Organizers use their group facilitation skills to help all members of the community to become active participants in the process. They work hard behind the scenes to support socializing and relationship-and trust-building.

Points to Consider

Besides finding the right organizer, other key attributes of successful online communities include:

• a shared vision of what constitutes the mission or niche of the community


• a core group willing to chime in on a variety of topics, self-monitor, and keep the conversation rolling


• opportunities for content creation such as book reviews, book chats, lesson sharing, and other professional development input


• regular posting of relevant, provocative issues.

Here are some questions you need to ask when designing your learning community:

• Will communications be asynchronous, synchronous, or both?


• Will we need file-storage and file-sharing capabilities?


• How will we share and store links to Web-based resources?


• How will we support collaboration on projects?


• Will we need archiving capability for Webcasts, chats, and threaded discussions?


• Will we need polling or surveying tools as part of our work?


• Is voice capability important for our synchronous events?


• Is a member profiling tool an important feature?


• What recruitment and rollout strategy will we have?


• Is the community open or closed?

Measuring Impact

Evaluation needs to be built in to this work from the beginning. In addition to any evaluation done in connection with scholarly research, it is critically important for organizers to use "just-in-time" assessments that allow for continuous improvement of the virtual community experience. Since this is a relatively new field, many research questions remain to be answered.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach is a regular speaker on teacher leadership and virtual community building. Her Web portal is 21st Century Collaborative.

21st Century Digital Learning Environments would like to hear your comments on and experiences with virtual learning communities:

• What role does Web 2.0 play in the development of teacher leadership and implementation of school reform through the communities in which we learn and play?


• What are the components of successful, thriving virtual communities?


• Do intentional roles and norms lead to building the trust that is necessary for a community to grow?


• Does part of the answer to meaningful change and implementation of 21^st century skills and dispositions in schools lie in the collaboration that occurs in virtual learning environments?

To participate in the conversation, visit http://www.digitallearningenvironments.blogspot.com

The TIP(S) of the 21st Century ICEBERG!

November 1, 2006

Tips for Building an Online Community

Susan Taylor

Attention school administrators: using technology to support virtual collaboration and establish an online community can serve as a useful tool to “keep the fire burning” among a planning group and help bring positive resolution to the task at hand.

The value of bringing the school community and various stakeholders together to address problems, find solutions and generally contribute to improving situations on the campus cannot be overstated. The most common way to bring people together is to host a face-to-face meeting. However, most issues are not resolved during a one-time meeting and follow up is usually required. In today’s world of competing priorities, it is difficult to find the space and time amenable to everyone’s schedule to allow for follow-up and ongoing conversations. To the rescue comes Virtual collaboration, and it can make a real difference.

Virtual Collaboration Tools

Virtual collaboration may be either Synchronous or Asynchronous. The difference: if it occurs during real-time activities like video teleconferencing or audio conference, where people are in different places participating at the same time, it is Synchronous; but if it enables participants to join in from different places at different times, then it is Asynchronous.

Some strategies to support virtual collaboration include the following:

• Establish regular times for team interaction

• Send agendas to participants beforehand

• Designate a team librarian

• Build and maintain a team archive

• Use visual forms of communication where possible

• Set formal rules for communication and/or technology use

Establishing an Online Community

To accommodate an online community, it is useful to think about the media being utilized and its effect on group dynamics. Kimball (1997, p. 3) provides some useful questions to help you with this process:

Media

Questions for Facilitator/Manager

Electronic Mail

• What norms need to be established for things like: response time, whether or not Email can be forwarded to others?

• What norms are important about who gets copied on Email messages and whether or not these are blind copies?

• How does the style of Email messages influence how people feel about the team?

Decision Making Support Systems

• How does the ability to contribute anonymous input affect the group?

• How can you continue to test whether “consensus” as defined by computer processing of input is valid?

• How can you help participants have a sense of who is “present?”

• How can you sense when people have something to say so you can make sure that everyone has a chance to be heard?

Media

Questions for Facilitator/Manager

Video conferencing

• How can you best manage the attention span of participants?

• Where can video add something you can’t get with audio only?

Asynchronous Web-Conferencing

• How do you deal with conflict when everyone is participating at different times?

• What’s the virtual equivalent of eye contact?

• What metaphors will help you help participants create the mental map they need to build a culture, which will support the team process?

Document Sharing

• How can you balance the need to access and process large amounts of information with the goal of developing relationships and affective qualities like trust?

Building trust and establishing relationships is cited as a challenge for online communities, so begin with a face-to-face meeting and then pursue the online community. During your face-to-face meeting, let people know that you want to continue the conversations and ask people to join your online community by submitting their Email addresses to you.

To reach as many people as possible, keep things simple in the beginning. Initiate your online community with listserv messages. Begin by sending a message to your group thanking them for attending your recent meeting. One way to begin interaction is to post a question and ask people to respond.

Consider if you want responses to go out to everyone on the listserv or if you want all responses to come to you and you will compile the responses and send back to everyone. Compilation of responses may help ensure anonymity for your members and encourage participation in the beginning when the trust level may not be where it needs to be.

As your online community grows, it will be useful to host an audio conference or another face-to-face meeting to continue the work on building trust.

Remember to offer content and information focused on participants’ interests. Provide resources to help participants make informed decisions. Although information sharing does not encourage community interaction, it may serve to reinforce continue use of the online community.

Use opportunities to share success stories and reward or recognize members.

As your group becomes comfortable with the online community, you may want to consider providing more sophisticated methods to support and maintain your community. Of course, this will be determined by your members’ level of expertise and ability to meet the technology requirements.

Email: Susan Taylor

REFERENCES

Kimball, L. (1997). Intranet Decisions: Creating your organization’s internal network, Miles River Press.

From Time to Time a SUMMARY is Necessary. THAT TIME IS NOW!