Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:42:38 GMT | 1 comment
I was having breakfast with my friend Bill Hyatt the other day, and we were talking about how important it is for startup businesses to have a very narrow focus, but also to be flexible about new opportunities. Bill called this “Ready, Fire, Aim”, which I found amusing.
However, this reminded me of the first business I started, Micro System Designs. I started this business with the idea that it would be cool to write software to backup a hard drive onto floppy disks using a disk auto-loader, because it was such a pain to have to keep changing the disks by hand when backing up a hard drive. I developed the software and got a little bit of interest, so then I needed to duplicate the disks. At that time, the duplication software that worked with an auto-loader cost around $500 and there was no way that I was paying that, so I wrote a duplication program myself.
It then turned out that my backup program wasn’t doing very well, but there was a lot of interest in my duplication program. Voila! I changed directions and had a successful business.
So I do believe that a startup should have a very narrow focus but be willing to change it when a better opportunity presents itself – just like Ready, Fire, Aim.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:32:09 GMT | 2 comments
I should ride my bike more. It is good exercise and saves the environment. However, I don’t like to ride my bike on everyday errands.
I was reminded of this today when I got new tires for our car. Like usual, I threw my bike in the back and rode home after dropping off the car. It isn’t far, about 2.5 miles, but I was hot and sweaty when I got home. I was smart this time and brought a piece of string to wrap around my pant leg. Usually I forget this and wind up getting chain oil on my pant leg.
When the car was ready, I rode back to the shop to pick it up, and I was a bit tired.
So it certainly worked out fine to ride my bike, but it isn’t something that I would normally do. Also, for the same reasons, I don’t think we can expect many Americans to forgo their cars and start doing a lot more bike riding either. Good thing I have my electric scooter to scoot around on!
Posted in Random Thoughts, Electric Vehicles, Global Warming, Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:37:42 GMT | 2 comments
I had my first bout of chronic fatigue in 1983. Back then, it was thought to be Ebstein Barr virus and I had to drop out of school for 6 months to get back to the point where I could function. Since then, I have continued battling my chronic fatigue and found something that has allowed me to control it – Vitamin C.
If I take 1000 mg of timed release Vitamin C sometime before going to bed (9 pm seems to work well) and then wake up at 2 am and take another, I can get a good night’s sleep. Otherwise, I usually wake up at 3 or 4 am and can’t go back to sleep for at least 2 hours and then will be exhausted the next day.
Read more...
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:34:04 GMT | 3 comments
When my kids ask if they are too fat or too thin, I tell them not to worry about their body shape or size. Instead, I tell them to eat healthy, get plenty of exercise and sleep, and let their body do whatever their body does.
Posted in Random Thoughts
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:15:27 GMT | 4 comments
Regardless of what Bush thinks, hydrogen powered vehicles are not a viable alternative.
First off, hydrogen is not something that can be “mined”, but instead must be produced using other energy sources [1]. With current technologies, electricity from hydrogen fuel cells is four times more expensive than electricity from the grid [2]. Secondly, hydrogen is very difficult to ship and store. Leave a hydrogen car at the airport for two weeks and half of the fuel will be lost due to evaporation [2]. Thirdly, while hydrogen fuel cells are clean, currently hydrogen fuel cells are costly to produce and fragile [3] and only about 50% efficient [4]. Lastly, hydrogen is not very dense so cars would need to have a tank 2-3 times larger than their gasoline tanks [3].
With all things considered, it doesn’t make sense to power cars with hydrogen; instead, just put batteries in the car and use the electricity directly.
References:
Posted in Electric Vehicles, Sustainable Energy
Posted by Max Dunn
Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:33:51 GMT | 2 comments
Back in 2004, there were four oil fields in the world which produced over one million barrels per day. Ghawar, which produced 4.5 million barrels per day (bpd), Cantarell in Mexico, which produced nearly 2 million bpd, Burgan in Kuwait which produced 1 million bpd and Da Qing in China which produced 1 million bpd [1].
However, Contarell hit its peak in 2004 and has been in decline ever since. In 2008, it is expected to produce about 1.4 million bpd [3] and continue to decline at a rate of about 14% [2].
The Cantarell field provides 60 percent of Mexico’s total production. Mexico is the second largest supplier of oil to the U.S. [3].
This is another indication that the world-wide supply of oil will soon fall below demand.
References:
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:45:54 GMT | no comments
The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia is by far the largest oil field in the world accounting for more than one-half of all oil production in Saudi Arabia. It was discovered in 1948 and has been producing 5 million barrels of oil per day for the last 10 years [1]. However, many believe that Ghawar has passed its peak [2][3][4].
Here is another detailed and technical analysis of the oil depletion levels of Ghawar by Stuart Saniford [5]:
Depletion Levels in Ghawar
While much of this information is very technical and difficult to browse through, the pictures that show how much of Ghawar is now filled with water graphically illustrates the problem. Saniford shows:
“The northern half of Ghawar is quite depleted.”
and
“In particular, Saudi oil production has been falling with increasing speeed since summer 2005, and overall, since mid 2004, about 2 million barrels of oil per day in production has gone missing. That’s 2.5% of world production.”
Read more...
Posted in Peak Oil
Posted by Max Dunn
Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:20:52 GMT | 4 comments
Ron Freund, past Chairman of the Electric Auto Association, took a survey of 116 RAV4 -EV owners to see how they liked driving a battery electric vehicle (BEV) in general, and in specific, how their experience with the RAV4-EV has been. This is a great reference for anyone interested in how a BEV performs in the real-world. Some of his conclusions are:
- Users frequently commented that the RAV4 has been the best car they ever owned
- The RAV4-EV dependability is remarkable
- The technology is working, no more research is needed
- It is a tragedy that the choice for BEVs does not exist in the market today
Living with a BEV: A Survey of User Experiences
Posted in Electric Vehicles
Posted by Max Dunn
Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:53:19 GMT | no comments
I have been reticent to publicly state my beliefs about global warming for a few reasons. One is that some of my friends are global warming believers and I don’t want to offend them. Another is that the global warming movement has gained so much momentum that it has becoming a core-belief of our society and to speak against it often makes a person seem crazy.
But the time has come for me to state my beliefs, and here they are:
- Many parts of the world are experiencing rising temperatures or other climate changes
- Man’s activities are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
- This increased CO2 is contributing in part to climate changes
- The effects from man’s contribution to climate change will not be as bad as many claim
On the other hand, I do believe that peak oil is going to be a gigantically huge problem and will be a major inflection point in the development and lifestyle of all civilization on this planet.
Conveniently, the actions to reduce CO2 are almost exactly the same ones that will help with peak oil. So I don’t mind riding the global warming train for now since it leads to the same place eventually!
Posted in Global Warming
Posted by Max Dunn
Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:28:42 GMT | 3 comments
What is with this vehicle-to-grid (V2G) stuff? Why is everyone so excited about it? I already showed how using batteries to store energy at night when it is cheap and then use it during the day doesn’t make sense economically1.
However, this is only part of the picture. It turns out that electricity generation is very complicated, in large part because there is no real storage on the electrical grid. Think about this: what happens when the power plants on the grid don’t produce enough electricity? There will be brownouts or blackouts, both of which are bad. But what happens when they produce too much electricity? Where does it go? Well, actually, since there is no real storage on the grid, it can’t go anywhere, so this is bad.
Read more...
Posted in Electric Vehicles