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Forwarded to me by a family member today…original attribution for license plate: Bob Nelson.

A recent graduate of The Ohio State University moved to Dearborn, Michigan when she landed a great job with a company located there. After becoming a citizen of Michigan, she felt almost as if she had betrayed her Ohio background and ancestry. She had an apartment with a Michigan address, and she winced whenever she looked at her Michigan driver’s license. When it came time to register her vehicle she had an idea. She’d get personalized plates and make things right.

The personalized license plate for her car arrived, and she beamed as she installed them. She was so proud she sent an instant message to her father right away. He too was a proud Ohio State alumnus.

‘Daddy,’ she typed. ‘I’m so excited! I got new, personalized plates for my Mini today. They’re Universityof Michigan plates!’

‘WHAT?’ he replied. ‘You have to be joking!’

‘Nope, I’m totally serious. Let me send you the image.’ Her father couldn’t stop laughing after he viewed the picture of her car.

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Update 12/27/2007: Well, we now have an update on the REAL story around this plate due to an email I received from Bob Nelson last night.

FICTION – The photo of the steel blue Mini Cooper with the (M)ORONS plate in front is done very well, but is a fake. I know, because I created that particular piece of artwork. I had to convert pieces of real letters and numbers (from a sample once shown on the Department of State website) to form letters that I didn’t have. The result was a nice, though fabricated, plate. Look closely at the R and the N… they look good, but they’re merely bits and pieces of other letters/numbers. Even the S is slightly distorted. Compare them to the REAL plates shown below. Someone took my fabricated artwork and skillfully plugged it into the Mini Cooper picture. I was proud of my handiwork, but never expected it to make the internet circuit.

FACT #1 – The (M)ORONS plate really does exist, and is owned by SPAR10 PL8S member Patrick Maguire. There is also a (M)ORONZ plate. I own that one. Here is what the REAL plates look like…

FACT #2 – Someone in California will make you a plastic plate for the front of your vehicle that looks just like the fake one above. I’ve seen it… and from a distance, it looks terrific! But on closer inspection, you realize it is heavy plastic, not embossed aluminum. I will try to get the name of this person who makes it, and post the contact information here.

Read the rest of the entry from Bob’s website.

Leave a comment if you’d like – comments are moderated to filter out spam, otherwise they’re unedited.

In 25 years as a spectator of college football, I can’t recall a season like this one. Prohibitive favorite after favorite knocked off. It’s really pretty entertaining.

The college football action hasn’t really even started this week and we’ve seen Arkansas knock off former #1 LSU (for the record, I thought they were the shakiest of the 1 loss teams – check out my update from last week) and USC returned to early season form blowing out Arizona State on Thanksgiving. Hawaii beat a very good Boise State team to win the WAC – but will lose to Washington next week, mark it down. Their offense is predicated on strong offensive line play and I believe the U-Dub defensive line will have their way with the Warriors…

The winner of today’s Kansas/Missouri game will likely ascend to the #1 spot (assuredly if Kansas, and maybe if Missouri.) West Virginia takes on something of an enigma in UConn, most people think WVU wins in a cake walk – I don’t know, they play defense and that’s usually a bad sign for WVU but it would surprise me if the ‘Neers pull out a closer than expected game. Virginia and Virginia Tech get it on today for a spot in the ACC championship game, look for Tech to win a close game. While in the ACC, look for Florida State to pull the upset against Florida – Florida doesn’t do well this year when playing actual teams with defenses and while FSU’s offense is its achilles heel, I can’t help but think that UF’s defense will be accommodating after giving up 20 to Florida Atlantic (!) last week.

Speaking of the SEC, I’m going to give it some props before ripping it. First off, generally, the SEC beats the teams it should beat. Of the 44 out of conference games, 34 have been played against non-BCS conference competition to date. The conference is 33-1 against those foes. Second, the best player in college football this year plays in the SEC, no not Tebow, it’s Darren McFadden. Third, the conference plays exciting, overtime games. Now, with the props out of the way, this conference has become the Pac 10 of old, gimick offenses and people forgetting to play sound defense. It is, in effect, a conference of Penn State level teams toward the top (LSU, Florida, Georgia) – not a one would win against Penn State presently – and Purdue level teams in the middle. Vanderbilt is something of a Northwestern and Ole Miss is the conference’s Minnesota.

As of today, I strongly suggest that the SEC is the 3rd strongest conference, the Pac 10 and Big 10 are stronger and deeper top to bottom and we’ll see that play out in bowl season. The Big 12 is a surprise to me, Kansas and Missouri are up while Colorado and Nebraska are down. Texas and Oklahoma have faded over the stretch. It’s strong at the top for sure, but I don’t know what to say about the middle. I have an uneasy feeling that Oklahoma State pulls the upset today…

The ACC is a mess. It’s a bunch of middle of the road teams with one really good defense in Virginia Tech. The Big East started strong and has stumbled badly down the stretch, does anyone really believe that West Virginia’s defense can hang with a proficient offense? And what happens when they face a defense with a pulse (USF anyone?) Nevertheless, I see West Virginia in the MNC game because they win out. If the winner of the Kansas/Missouri team draws anyone but Oklahoma from the South in the Big 12 championship game, that will be the other half of the MNC. Otherwise, your Ohio State Buckeyes will complete the dance card.

If the Ohio State defensive line plays with the intensity it did against Michigan, there’s not a team in the land that will beat them. On the other hand, if they play the way they did against Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and West Virginia could beat them. We’ll see, lots of football to be played yet. Enjoy the games today, I know I will. Let’s see the season of the upset carry on in full force!

Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I wish you happy thanksgiving and a turkey with no tan lines!

Each year, I take a moment to think about what I’m thankful for. Here’s a partial list: family, friends, dogs, technology, civil rights, business opportunities, the California coast, food, health, freedom of movement, economic choice, innovation, reason, great books and music.

Whatever you’re thankful for, make sure you appreciate it now. Have a great day.

Chart of Calpine’s Six Month Stock Price


Back in June when Calpine unveiled their plan to emerge from bankruptcy, we weren’t too positive. In fact, we were downright puzzled by the market reaction sending the stock over $3/share and market capitalization greater than $1.5B. The issue has been on a steady downswing since that time settling in around $1.20/share, around $600M in market cap. Yesterday the bottom dropped out when the company announced a reduction in their enterprise value by $900M. The stock’s valuation now stands around $240M and closed yesterday at $0.495/share.

We wonder if it might not be a sensible thing for Calpine to spinoff its geothermal unit into a separate entity and let the natural gas portion of its portfolio sort itself out with the mother company. With the current market for renewable energy running very hot, this could create a pure play competitor to Ormat with 2x the generation capacity (Ormat is producing about $200M/year from ~375MW – Calpine has 800MW, that should produce around $425M in revenue per year…)

At current valuation and with the geothermal assets, we see Calpine as an interesting speculative buy. Caveat Emptor.

Disclosure: The author holds no position in Calpine stock. The author is considering a speculative, long-term position in the company.

A few days ago the link for Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) was forwarded along to us. This is a mashup of the global electric power plant database on a map with visual representation of the size of the plant, intensity, and carbon contribution plotted on the map, globally, by continent, by country, by region/state, etc. Take a look at a screen shot below:

CARMA Screenshot

As you can see, the top 50 carbon emitters are plotted at a global level and #49 Navajo Power Plant is selected showing it produces 17.6 GWh of power along with 19.9 M tons of CO² emissions per year. One of the more interesting things they track is intensity, or pounds of CO² emitted per megawatt-hour of electricity produced.

The data in CARMA are compiled from numerous sources. Emissions data for thousands of power plants in the U.S., Canada, the EU, and India come from official reports. Other data are derived from information provided by power sector analysts, the International Energy Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and a host of geographic databases. So while it might not be 100% accurate, it’s credible and trackable and certainly better than what existed before.
Zoom in on US Plant details

The aggregations and zooming are very useful and it enables a researcher to determine not only the largest contributors to CO² emissions, but also the most intense (or least efficient) as well as the lowest producers and most efficient power plants. One thing that may be surprising to people is that the largest electric power plants on the planet are also among the lowest CO² emitters – gravity hyrdo-generation facilities. For instance, the largest plant on the planet is ITAIPU in Brazil, an 8 GW hydo facility producing over 63 GWh of power per year and zero CO². In fact, of the 15 largest power plants globally (4 GW and over) – ten are zero CO² emission.

If you’re interested in knowing more about power plants, their emissions, and impact, we encourage you to visit CARMA.