In what has become one of the latest examples of the Bush Administration’s difficulty with matching their actions to their words, the geothermal program at the Department of Energy will receive funding this fiscal year of $0 if the budget passes as is. This is a national tragedy in the making as we are unable (or unwilling) to make use of all the assets we have to drive toward energy independence.

Why is geothermal important? I’m glad you asked. Geothermal power is the only renewable capable of baseload generation – meaning, it’ll be there when you flip your TV on (you do expect it to come on, right?) Solar, wind, biomass, and hydro are all less than baseload as they are affected by external factors (sunlight, wind, and drought.) Geothermal power generation in a closed system is zero emission. In an open system, it’s still far less than 1% as polluting as coal generation. The recent MIT study demonstrated there is more than enough heat stored in the Earth’s crust for us to harvest to power the nation (and indeed, the world.) You would think that a power source with these attributes would be at or near the top of any energy policy’s priorities.

When one considers the size of the Department of Energy’s proposed budget, the ridiculousness of this action becomes clear: The total budget is $24,300,000,000 or $24.3 BILLION. The size of the geothermal program? $0.0022B or $22 MILLION. The amount budgeted for maintaining our nuclear capability? $9.4 billion. The amount set aside to clean up the environmental messes we’ve already made? $9.4 billion. The amount budgeted for basic science? $4.4 billion (this is a good thing, but geothermal must be part of the research program.) $3.1 billion is budgeted for energy efficiency and supply programs. Fundamentally, I have nothing against other renewable programs being funded (an aside, solar funding is flat, wind has been cut 10%, hydro and geothermal have been cut altogether; hydrogen, biomass, and “clean coal” have all seen big increases in funding.) But I do have heartburn with failing to fund the one renewable electricity generation source that stands a chance of displacing aging, dirty coal plants.

The geothermal program is a rounding error in a budget of this size. The program deserves to be funded an order of magnitude more per year in order to realize the potential of the geothermal resources inside our border, not eliminated. The solution to this budget mess is clear, cut “clean coal” research by $250 million and use it to fund geothermal at the right level. After all, if coal pollution is cut by anything less than 99%, it’s still more polluting than the dirtiest geothermal resource. This is a matter of priorities and, as usual, the Bush Administration is confused in what is in the national interest by why is in the interest of their big money donors (see TXU and the $11 BILLION dollar coal construction binge in Texas.) Politics clearly play a role in this as well as Harry Reid (D,) US Senator from Nevada (home to huge amounts of geothermal potential) is the Senate Majority Leader, the Administration is aiming to hurt him at home and/or use that as a lever to get something else in the future if they cave on the geothermal research request.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter why this is happening. The action signals the end of US government support for geothermal as a renewable energy source. A resource that could over the course of 50 years displace the entire coal electricity generation infrastructure in the United States with the attendant environmental benefits. And that’s the point, isn’t it? Geothermal is being sacrificed on the altar of “clean coal” – if ever there was an oxymoron, it is “clean coal.”

We’ll watch closely to see what changes happen in the proposed budget, but we’re not hopeful. If you would like make yourself heard on the subject, write your local Congressial representative and your Senators.


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Technorati Tags: DoE | FY07 Budget | Geothermal Slashed | Mike Harding Blog

As a result, this will be a short entry; I need to complete a business plan revision today.

So, on to the Superbowl. I predicted a Bears win in a sloppy game. Well, we got the sloppy game. Did the opening kickoff return remind anyone else of the Debacle in the Desert? Sure did for me…I knew the Bears were doomed then. I turned off the TV and watched the rest of the game later while muted and in fast forward. This is the best way to watch bad games, it cuts the time commitment down to about 40 minutes.



$85,000 per second for advertising was wasted apparently. A study performed on the physiological impacts of the Superbowl ads showed they weren’t effective by and large. Except at activating the amygdala, the “fight or flight” center of the brain. My favorite result was from Honda, it had less impact than showing a blank screen!

Rhetorical question: If you’re going to pony up $2.5M for a 30 second ad, wouldn’t you spend a few thousand dollars to test that it would be effective before airing it to a billion people to discover it makes them want to leave the room or throw a beer bottle through the TV? Nah, that would make too much sense.

Martin Hardee makes an interesting set of observations in his latest entry on the Dorito’s ad (one of the few to test positive by the way…) Makes you realize just how badly Viacom fumbled the ball with the YouTube situation.



Watch all the Superbowl advertisements here.


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In the latest “Google bought YouTube, now it’s worthwhile to sue them” sweepstakes, Viacom demands that YouTube delete 100,000 videos from its site. This happened Friday and isn’t news. However, the real story that has been missed by everyone, starting with the Viacom executive team, is that Viacom has just destroyed a $1B business opportunity. No doubt Viacom legal team advised this on two fronts: hold up GooTube for the maximum amount of money and for leverage in any future content deals. OK, that’s their right.

But, what if, instead of taking this approach the Viacom execs showed some creativity and embraced the phenomena that is user posted video? I mean, let’s be real here, due to the video posting rules, the average video size a user posts is 6 minutes. It’s not like they’re ripping off an entire 44 minute CSI episode here…..What they’re doing is providing FREE PROMOTION of the content being pushed by Viacom. After all, didn’t someone like it enough to go to the trouble of posting it? Isn’t it in Viacom’s interest to have a broader audience than is available on broadcast mediums alone? Isn’t it great to have a single place to engage this audience?

There are all kinds of fancy things that could have been done. But what about this dirt simple approach: GooTube, you keep the content up if you like, but we want you to add a live link back to Viacom on which we will do what we like to further promote and monetize the traffic. It could be done in an afternoon. What if Viacom had said “let’s create a Viacom community on GooTube” where our content can be showcased, shared, and discussed with multiple means of monetizing starting with advertising?

Let’s do some math: 100,000 videos. Each video averages 1,000 views over a year (I’ve posted one video 40 days ago that has had 404 views – it’s nothing special 3 star rated.) That brings us very quickly to 100 million viewing opportunities. Aside from the normal advertising stuff, let’s say we use contextual advertising where the video lead-in to the ads is relevant both to the content of the video and the profile of the viewer. That boosts the value of the ad tremendously. If we can average $1/view, we get $100M dollars. $10/view, we get $1B dollars in a year. $10/view will be very tough. $1 per view is possible (and to be explicit, I’m not talking about charging the viewer $1, that would be the fastest way to shrink this audience) if the ads are highly targeted and highly context sensitive.

But let’s not take the 1 year view, since Viacom has now demonstrated that they “get it” the number of videos grows to 200,000, then to 500,000 – audiences grow on the other transmission mediums, rates for traditional advertising increase. The linkage between broadcast and network blurs as people share and engage around their favorite content as Viacom springs into the lead by making the content freely viewable and promotes participation in the audience. Even at $1 per view, Viacom can reach $1B without requiring much in the way of imagination. Argue that $1 per view is tough, fine, it’s still greater than $0 per view.

Now I don’t know what Viacom’s lawyers think they can extort from GooTube through traditional means… But I do know this: the amount is less than $1B, this approach damages Viacom’s reputation in the audience as it’s clear Viacom doesn’t “get it,” and it damages a ready-made $1B business opportunity irrevocably. After all, do you really for a moment think those videos don’t exist elsewhere on the net? Puh-leaze! Instead of having a known audience in a single place, they’ve just dispersed the asset to other places where it’s not likely that copyright laws will reach (China anyone?)

If you’re a Viacom shareholder, you deserve and should demand more than simple extortion at the hands of broken copyright laws. You should demand that the leadership start engaging the audience on the network and harvesting cash from them in creative ways that grow the community. I’m not arguing about Viacom’s content rights, I’m arguing their ham-handed and ineffective way of using them in this instance. Why not harvest the energy of the tide rather than engage in a futile and stupid attempt to hold it back? If you’re a shareholder (and I’m not) I think you should be asking some pointed questions at the next annual meeting…you deserve better and more creative leadership. What they’re doing now amounts to passing $1B on the sidewalk simply because they can’t recognize it’s exists. Viacom trades at 24 times earnings today, adding a billion dollars to current earnings moves the share price from $41 to $76 per stub.

Investment advice: Short Viacom as a long-term issue. They’ll be a fully owned Microsoft subsidiary in 10 years time after being purchased for pennies on the dollar of current market value.

Update: Check Jim Moore’s blog out for an actual story of someone caught up in the sweep. If you check the video, it’s obvious Viacom has no ownership yet Jim was forced to remove it anyway. Talk about alienating an audience!

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If this report of the antics in the shower at Calhoun College is any indication, then yes. In what you’d expect to hear about from those Deltas at Faber College, the showers are being occupied, shall we say, by merry makers. Guess those Ivy League campuses aren’t as squeaky clean as one might think.

Well, I say good. Even nerds need to get their groove on.


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Distributed, private, co-generation is almost certainly part of the solution as we move toward energy independence and reduced emissions. As reported by News.com, Climate Energy, a small Massachusetts company has put a micro-sized combined heat and power unit for homes on the market.

Combined heat and power units are nothing new, they’ve been in use for many years in manufacturing and large, multi-building developments. What makes this entry different is that it is a straight replacement for furnances and supplements the installation with power production of 1.2 kilowatts, or potentially up to 720 kilowatt hours per month (while heat is in use.) To make this personal, in our household we used just over 800 kilowatt hours in January – that would nearly eliminate our power bill taking some $150 in charges out of the equation.

However, this is still a fossil fuel unit powered by natural gas and the $13,500 cost takes around 90 months of heating to break even at our consumption level. It’s a step in the right direction, but there is clearly more room for improvement. Thanks Scott for passing this along.


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Technorati Tags: Energy | Combined Heat Power | Micro Generation | Mike Harding Blog