Last week I posted an entry excoriating Congress (the Senate in particular) for changes to the Energy Bill which among other things, ripped out production tax credits and renewable portfolio standards. But, credit where credit is due, there is a $95M line item for geothermal R&D which will be earmarked to do the following things:

• Geopressured and oil and gas field co-produced resource production: Clean, renewable geothermal energy can be produced with existing natural gas and oil and gas fields. These uses could revolutionize both the geothermal and the fossil fuel industry.
• Industry-coupled drilling: This program pairs the federal government with geothermal developers to reduce drilling risks and improve drilling precision. Exploration and drilling pose some of the most difficult risks for new geothermal projects and can add significantly to project costs.
• Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS): The MIT and NREL reports suggest that 100,000 megawatts (MW) or more of geothermal power could
  be produced using advanced technology. A sustained research and development effort is needed to move towards this goal.
• Center for geothermal technology transfer: Such a center, which currently does not exist, is critical to developers seeking information about geothermal prospects and technology advances.
• International Geothermal Collaboration: DOE and US AID are directed to support international geothermal development, particularly related to the African Rift Geothermal Development Facility, Australia, China, France, the Republic of Iceland, India, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Karl Gawell from the Geothermal Energy Association has a nice write-up of the bill at the GEA website. So it’s not all bad news, but still, the PTC longterm extension and RPS omissions are glaring.

A DingleBerry; orchestrated by new Michigan Coach Rodriguez

Today the University of Michigan introduced its new football coach to the world, Rich Rodriguez. The self-proclaimed “Leaders and Best” went south of the Ohio River to poach Coach Rod from the West Virginia University Mountaineers. Sporting a 60-26 record in his 7 seasons at WVU, Rodriguez is a proven coach in Division I football. Though his record in “big” games hovers more around the .500 mark with the signature win of his tenure coming over Georgia in a bowl.

So what does this mean for the Wolverines? They’ve snagged themselves a good coach after, what most people would call, a bungled search process over the past month spawning a highly entertaining Lester Miles courtship and a short-lived Greg Schiano affair. But aside from Coach Rod (sounds kind of like a porn-star nickname doesn’t it?) being a good coach, is he the “right” coach and a good fit for the Wolverines? Time will tell, but on the surface, it leaves you scratching your head a little.

Michigan has long been a team with a punishing running game, pro-style passing attack, and strong defense where they dare you to line up and out-physical them to win. This season saw UM ripped by Oregon and upset by App State running spread attacks and I think the Rodriguez hire reflects the current world view of being enamored of the spread offense with a mobile quarterback. There are two gotchas here though for the Wolverines: 1) defense, not offense has been the problem and unless the defense is fixed, it doesn’t really matter what offense you choose to run and 2) UM’s athletes have been recruited for the pro-style, power offense, not the read/option spread. Can you imagine the statue that is heir-apparent quarterback Ryan Mallet running the read/option spread? Didn’t think so…

I hope, for the rivalry’s sake, that the good folks in Ann Arbor study the experiment that was Bill Callahan’s tenure at Nebraska. Changing the offense dramatically won’t yield the high level of achievement coveted by the Wolverines, it will lead to disaster. However, Coach Rod is a winning and smart coach, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he’ll adjust the offensive scheme to his players, recruit into the system he’d ultimately like to run, and will take steps to shore up the once proud defense back to its normal killer form.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few years. Again, for the rivalries sake, I wish for a strong and competent competitor in Michigan. I hope they don’t try to do too much too soon and sink next season.

From time to time someone will ask me “what tools and techniques do you use for your blog?” and I rattle of a long, incomplete list of stuff which is a little different each time. So I thought I’d put pen to paper and start a comprehensive list that I’ll update periodically. Aside from this entry, which is accurate today, you can always find the latest list in the sidebar link Great Blog Tools. Hope this is useful to you, these tools are certainly valuable to me!

Hosting

Servlet Inc. – The good folks at Servlet have been around a long time. The thing that distinguishes them from any other provider is the service. They’ll take care of you and make sure you’re a satisfied customer. Yes, you can get cheaper packages, but you’ll never find the degree of personal attention and service that this team provides. Highly recommended. Disclosure: I’ve known the founders of Servlet for over 20 years, but I maintain no commercial relationship with the company other than as a customer.

Software

Fedora – Works for me and for millions of others. I also considered OpenSolaris (due to my long relationship with Sun Microsystems.)

Apache – Works well, very flexible, tons of packages and add-ons available. Best web server available in my opinion.

PHP – A fine scripting language that allows you to extend the functionality of native packages.

MySQL – Best open source database bar none.

WordPress – If you’re going to host your own blog, WordPress the choice. If you want them to host it, check out WordPress.com.

Minim Theme – One of the best things about WP is the sheer number and variety of themes. We like the Minim Theme from the UpStart Blogger. I’ve modified the theme heavily, but the core influence is still apparent.

404 Notifier – This plugin keeps you informed of errors on your blog through email messages and/or an rss feed. Written by prolific plugin author Alex King.

Akismet – I love Akismet. I wouldn’t blog without Akismet. 66,000 spam comments have been caught and handled by this wonder plugin authored by Matt Mullenweg. Highly Recommended.

All-in-one-SEO – A convenient and effective meta tag, short description, and title manager. With WP 2.3, you get these things for free now, but I still like the way the plugin manages the activities a bit better.

Get Recent Comments – A plugin that finds and displays the most recent comments and trackbacks on your blog at the place of your choosing.

Google XML Sitemaps – This handy plugin creates sitemap.xml files, compresses them, and alerts major players like Google and Yahoo that you’ve got new content.

Popularity Contest – Another plugin by the prolific Alex King. This one outfits your blog with a weighting system to determine the most popular content on your blog and then display it wherever you’d like.

Recent Posts – This plugin makes a handy list of your x latest posts for inclusion in sidebars etc.

Related Posts – This plugin enables full text indexing on your blog database and will suggest entries that are somehow related to the present entry being viewed.

WP Short Stats – This plugin queries your database to let you know who’s visiting what on your blog when. Nice little package that does a great job in concert with web log analyzers.

AWStats – A comprehensive and detailed web log analyzer. I wouldn’t put up a web site without it. Highly Recommended.

Mac OSX – It’s not like Apple needs any more press, but I can say this. When you can shift your focus from making the computer work to simply doing work on the computer, your life transforms for the better. I was staunchly anti-Mac for years, OSX has changed that. I don’t know how to work without Expose for instance.

Transmit – A full-featured and robust file transfer utility. Yes, I have scripts using rsync that keep two machines synchronized, but when I’m in user land, Transmit fits the bill. No fuss, no muss.

Navicat – The best GUI tool for MySQL bar none. If you work with MySQL frequently, run, don’t walk to pick up this indispensable utility.

Taco Edit – A fast and efficient html, css, and php editor.

Graphic Converter – If you muck with images, then you’ll need a utility like this. Great for resizing, conversion, and basic editing/touch-up.

FeedBurner – A great, now free, way to outsource and aggregate your RSS feeds. Recently acquired by Google.

PayPal – If you’re going to business on the net, you may as well use PayPal. It’s a great way to get paid and pay people.

Google Analytics – Place a little snippet of code in your blog and away you go. A full-featured and free way to understand who’s doing what on your site and to track changes that improve/degrade the experience. My only gripe is that it consistently under counts visitors relative to local web log analysis and blog stat plugin analysis (and even relative to AdSense – where you’re getting paid for traffic!)

Pingomatic – A reliable ping/announcement service for your content with limited coverage.

Pingoat – A comprehensive ping/announcement service for your content.

Monetization

Local Advertising – I will work with you to create the best exposure for the best price possible. Read the details if you’re interested.

Kontera – Inline, contextual text link advertising. This is new for me, I don’t know how well it will work as yet.

Google AdSense – The mature leader in the marketplace. It works, but the conversion rates and pay rates leave alot to be desired. I’m working to increase the effectiveness of this tool set on this blog.

Review Me! – If you’d like, I will write a review of your product/service/site subject to the rules available here: terms and conditions.

Hardware

Mac G5 Tower – Great desktop machine, plenty of horse power to host a staging and testing system at home for the blog, webserver, and databases.

Mac Powerbook – Great laptop machine, also hosts copies of everything and allows me to make updates while on the move.

HP Xeon Rackmount Server – Rugged and reliable server thus far, provided by Servlet as part of our hosting package.

Do you use a tool I haven’t mentioned and find it to be indispensable? Leave a comment, always happy to learn more!

Berkeley Lab geochemist Mack Kennedy

Photo Credit: Roy Kaltschmidt
Via Renewable Energy Access:

In a survey of the northern Basin and Range province of the western United States, geochemists Mack Kennedy of the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Matthijs van Soest of Arizona State University have discovered a new tool for identifying potential geothermal energy resources with no drilling required.

…

Kennedy and van Soest made their discovery by comparing the ratios of helium isotopes in samples gathered from wells, surface springs, and vents across the northern Basin and Range. Helium-three, whose nucleus has just one neutron, is made only in stars, and Earth’s mantle retains a high proportion of primordial helium-three (compared to the minuscule amount found in air) left over from the formation of the solar system. Earth’s crust, on the other hand, is rich in radioactive elements like uranium and thorium that decay by emitting alpha particles, which are helium-four nuclei. Thus a high ratio of helium-three to helium-four in a fluid sample indicates that much of the fluid came from the mantle.

High helium ratios are common in active volcanic regions, where mantle fluids intrude through the ductile boundary of the lower crust. But when Kennedy and van Soest found high ratios in places far from volcanism, they knew that mantle fluids must be penetrating the ductile boundary by other means.

…

“We have never seen such a clear correlation of surface geochemical signals with tectonic activity, nor have we ever been able to quantify deep permeability from surface measurements of any kind,” says Kennedy. The samples they collected on the surface gave the researchers a window into the structure of the rocks far below, with no need to drill.

Read more…

As a company with a vested interest in the Basin and Range province and in alternate methods of geothermal resource assessment, this is a welcome breakthrough. The research paper describing the technique and results published by van Soest and Kennedy appears in Science is available to subscribers for review. If this method proves reliable, it could open a whole new round of geothermal exploration (and certainly will be used as another tool to assess current geothermal prospects.)