text:
Saturday, 4 September 2010
A tank full of petrol ("gasoline," if you prefer), and what it means
I've mentioned before that we're not really all that enthusiastic about driving, but today we made a short journey in our car and needed to fill up the tank.
It made me think: what exactly have we bought today ? Our tank full of fuel came to a bit more than 36 and a half litres. 36.5 l of petrol weighs about 26 kg. Burning that one tank full of petrol will put about 84 kg, a little more than my own weight, of CO2 into the air. That's the effect from just one tank full of petrol, which according to the manufacturer is supposed to be enough to drive around 500 km.
Petrol is amazing stuff. It has an energy content of 9.7 kWh per litre, so today we bought 355 kWh of energy for our 53 euros. The car consumes about 0.7 kWh produces 0.17 kg of CO2 per km driven.
A few years back, someone who set a world record by cycling over 1000 km in 24 hours calculated that his average power output was about 115 W for the entire 24 hours. That's someone at the absolute peak of what is possible, and his body generated about 2.7 kWh over a 24 hour period.
In light of this, I think it's reasonable to say that an averagely strong person doing an 8 hour shift at a physically demanding job would expend no more than 1 kWh per day at work, so we could say that in our tank full of petrol we've bought the equivalent of someone working hard nearly every day for an entire year, including weekends and almost all holidays. This cost just 53 euros. That really is a bargain.
Car manufacturers put a lot of effort into insinuating otherwise, but cars are actually quite amazingly inefficient. It seems no-one is really all that interested in making them any more efficient. Petrol provides an awesome amount of energy for a remarkably small cost, and pushing gently on the accelerator makes a car zoom along quite nicely. Anyone who's ever pushed a car any distance knows that there is nothing particularly efficient about it.
There is much hype over electric cars, even though they do little more than to shift the source of the output of that CO2 elsewhere. Many power stations are still coal power stations. In fact, many new coal power stations are still being built, all around the world.
When you burn coal at a power station you get only about 2 kWh of energy per kg of coal burnt. If instead of filling up a petrol car today we had charged batteries of an electric car with the same amount of energy by using electricity generated by coal, it would have required the burning of no less than 177 kg of coal, producing a whopping 518 kg of CO2 in the process. That's over 6 times the amount produced by burning petrol directly in a car. An equivalent electric car therefore would still consume about 0.7 kWh but produce over 1 kg of CO2 per km driven. That's being quite generous, as you never get so much energy out of a battery as you put into it when you charge it. With NiMH batteries, for instance, you get back out only about 2/3rds of the energy you put in - under ideal conditions.
Electric bicycles are also not so innocent as many people think. According to this pro electric bike website it costs 1.8 kWh in electricity to charge an electric bike battery for a 20 mile (32 km) range. That's nearly 1 kg of coal per charge. Even with their figures, which like mine for electric cars ignore the problem of inefficiency of rechargeable batteries, this indicates that an electric assisted bicycle, powered by electricity from coal, consumes about 0.05 kWh and produces about 0.08 kg of CO2 per km ridden.
Yes, so electric bikes, if charged by electricity generated by coal (in Australia, for instance, 80% of electricity comes from coal, and the majority of the rest from other fossil fuels), have a CO2 output per km which is only about half that of an average car with one occupant.
Public transport isn't all that much better either. The average bus occupancy in the UK is only about 9 people. Due to this, figures you can calculate for overall efficiency for the entire bus network are actually remarkably similar to those for single occupancy cars.
The same happens with trains. Only if you assume that electric trains take all their electricity from carbon neutral sources do they look particularly good. High speed trains are remarkably close in emissions to jet aircraft.
Here's a comparison of different passenger transport modes in the US. It doesn't much matter than it says BTU instead of kWh that I've been using. 3413 BTU are equivalent to 1 kWh, so divide these figures by 3413 to get equivalent figures to my calculations above:
As you can see, changing from one of these modes to another is really only about making a small change. Anyone who tells you that one mode of powered transport is incredibly more efficient than another is either selling you something, or is misinformed. However, it's big business (much like oil is) and there are plenty of people with a vested interest in trying to convince you that their motorised car replacement can change the world.
Lots of things are described as "green" but few genuinely are. There is a truly "green" alternative to these modes of transport. It's called a bicycle. No fuel is burnt. No CO2 emissions result. You do have to eat, however from what I've seen, people who drive don't eat any less than people who cycle.
All bicycles are wildly more efficient than powered vehicles. They have to be. Inefficiency makes you tired too quickly (compare pushing a bike with pushing a car). However, some bicycles are still more efficient than others and this makes a huge difference if you need to travel more than short distances. A truly "green" car-replacement for longer journeys looks like this !
The sharp eyed might notice we went to a BP station. I know some people are boycotting them, but frankly it's a waste of time doing so. In my opinion there is very little to choose between oil companies. They're all doing their best to make as much profit as possible from extracting oil from wherever they can get it, and they are all responsible for spills. BP was simply unlucky enough to have had their disaster where it was widely seen and reported upon. Boycotting one chain won't do any good. What really needs to happen is for people to appreciate what an amazing resource both oil and coal are, and to consume less of them.
54 comments:
- r s thompson said...
it costs 1.8 kWh in electricity to charge an electric bike battery for a 20 mile (32 km) range. That's nearly a 1 kg of coal per charge.
is that a problem??
if one walked and it would take 4 hours to do tasks where the electric bike could cut task time down to 1.5 hours thus freeing up more time to...figure out more efficient ways of doing things and saving more energy...wouldnt the electric bike have some merit?
- 4 September 2010 at 23:43
- townmouse said...
Hmm. Good analysis but I feel uncomfortable about comparing CO2 outputs for buses vs cars. On the few occasions where I can't cycle into town I can take the rural bus, which is a very inefficient one indeed - sometimes I'm the only passenger or one of two or three. Clearly the bus will use more fuel than our little car. Yet it seems obvious to me that if I choose to take the bus, all other things being equal, then at the end of the day there will be less CO2 in the atmosphere than if I had driven, because the bus will make the journey anyway. Of course, in the long term if enough people don't use the bus then it will be scrapped, saving all that CO2, but I don't think anyone would argue that that was an improvement given that the few remaining bus passengers (some of whom are quite elderly) would then be forced into cars or stuck in their homes altogether. Far better surely to encourage more people to leave their cars at home and take the bus.
I'm all for bikes, and use the bus mostly as a last resort, but I don't think we should be playing into the car manufacturers' hands by repeating these statistics emphasising the inefficiency of buses.
- 4 September 2010 at 23:45
- 2whls3spds said...
Electricity has the advantage that it can be generated by a variety of means; solar, wind, water as well as nuclear. I do agree that coal is not a great source. FWIW I have been playing with the numbers of setting up a small solar generation station on our farm to recharge a golf cart we have. It would not take much to add an electric bicycle and small car to the mix.
Gasoline once burned is gone, and as shown by the BP fiasco is not particularly environmentally friendly during extraction.
Right now I think the best any of us can do is to limit our use of infernal combustion engines and ride our bikes or walk.
- 5 September 2010 at 00:12
- David Hembrow said...
r s: No, burning coal isn't a problem at all.
Bikes without electric motors are quicker than those with them (which are limited to 25 km/h). It's possible to build faster electric bikes, but these have higher emissions.
townmouse: It's not "playing into the car manufacturers' hands" simply to write the truth. What am I do to otherwise ? Write a lie about the efficiency of different forms of transport ?
I also don't buy the "it's going anyway" argument. Why will it "make the journey anyway" when it's so ludicrously inefficient to send a huge diesel vehicle on regular long distance journeys just in case someone might use it. Demand responsive buses might make more sense in some of these instances.
However, even the "elderly" are helped by infrastructure which supports cycling. Retired people in the Netherlands make a quarter of all their journeys by bike, while it's not unknown for people of a similar age in the UK to be scared off the roads and trapped in their homes by the traffic.
- 5 September 2010 at 00:14
- Brent said...
1) I might suggest a "well-to-wheel" analysis when comparing electric to traditional cars:
(Staring at minute 6)
2) Most people could stand to exercise more, but human power isn't especially carbon friendly. The body is roughly 20 percent efficient, according to Wikipedia. That's about the same efficiency as cars. When the carbon costs of food production are factored in, it may sometimes be more carbon-friendly to eat less and drive, than eat more and bicycle or walk:
3) Electrics can be recharged from clean power sources. Traditional cars cannot. Certainly in California, my part of the world, electrical generation is steadily getting cleaner. I understand it is also so in much of western Europe.
- 5 September 2010 at 00:15
- David Hembrow said...
Aaron, Brent: Yes, it's true that electricity "can" be generated by other means, but the majority in the world actually still comes from coal or other fossil fuels (for which the numbers are comparable). The USA is no exception, and California is much like everywhere else in the country.
Also remember that the generating capacity simply doesn't exist for more than a very small percentage to switch to electric cars. If this is to happen you need to build many more power stations. Coal stations are quick to build.
- 5 September 2010 at 00:24
- fred_dot_u said...
Even though the numbers present about producing electricity via burning carbon in some form, they are somewhat misleading. Many if not all power plants must operate 24 hours per day in order to keep efficiency, even when no electricity is needed. If someone is charging an electric vehicle during the overnight hours, he is using energy that is otherwise completely wasted.
Along a similar train of thought, an incredible amount of energy is used to create the fuel that is burned in an ICE vehicle and is rarely considered in the calculations.
That said, as a velomobile driver, I much prefer to pedal to my destination rather than to drive either of my electric vehicles.
The speed limitation noted on electric assist bicycles are not universal across the world and in the United States, it's different from one state to another, some with no limits on speed. There is great confusion and misleading information regarding e-assist bikes in the US.
- 5 September 2010 at 00:54
- Brent said...
The grid-capacity argument has been much debated without a clear answer. I don't believe, however, that it can support only a "very small percentage." At least one study shows the existing U.S. grid could support about 70 percent of current capacity:
I believe about one-half of California's electricity comes from coal, with the remainder from cleaner sources. Perhaps this snippet may shed some light:
"The Natural Resources Defense Council, using data from the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Air Resources Board, estimates that a typical gas-powered car produces 465 grams of carbon dioxide per mile. Electric cars feeding off of California's power grid produce 142 grams per mile. Electric cars plugged into the grid elsewhere in the country - drawing power from the nation's average mix of natural gas, coal and nuclear plants - produce 214 grams of carbon dioxide per mile."
- 5 September 2010 at 00:55
- Erik Sandblom said...
For electric trains, it depends a great deal on how you measure. Either you measure how much power the railway buys from the power company, or you measure how much coal the power company needs to generate that amount.
It seems the numbers from Wikipedia come from the coal the power company needs, which appears to more than double the required amount. In contrast to automobiles, trains are flexible and are commonly run on electricity or diesel, and the electricity can be generated from hydro, nuclear, wind or coal. So it's wrong to assume they always run on coal.
The Transportation Energy Data Book assumes 10 339 BTUs per kwh, page A19, whereas wikipedia's separate entry on BTUs says only 3412.
High-speed trains are not very energy-intensive, I believe that's hearsay. They have a smaller frontal area and more seats than most planes. TGVs have an occupancy rate of 70 %, which is almost twice that of ordinary trains. Flexible ticket prices contribute to that.
- 5 September 2010 at 00:56
- David Hembrow said...
Fred: You're right about most power plants having to run 24 hours a day, but not all charging of electric vehicles will be overnight. In fact, the calculation for coal expects that the electricity will be used. The proportion of time that the power station burns fuel to produce energy that no-one uses actually results in everything powered by electricity being proportionately less efficient than I have described here.
You're also right about a lot of energy being used to make petrol in a form that a car can burn it.
Both of these things add up to make bicycles even more efficient relative to other forms of transport than I wrote above.
All other things being equal, efficiency gets lower as speed gets higher. Where electric bikes are allowed to go faster, they will be even less efficient than where they are required to travel at a lower speed.
- 5 September 2010 at 01:02
- Erik Sandblom said...
In France and Sweden, 90% of the electricity comes from nuclear or renewables.
Coal doesn't need to be the dominant source.
- 5 September 2010 at 01:04
- matt said...
Some of the figures are wrong. e-bikes are more efficient than stated.
Amongst the biggest e-bike batteries on the market are the Wisper Sports long range, 36V 14Wh, 504Wh capacity. With a 250 W motor that is 2 hours of discharge and about 50 km of assistance. With 2kWh of energy per kilo of coal that works out at a back of the envelope figure of 5 grams of coal per km, or about 12 grams of carbon dioxide per km of assistance. And most e-bike riders pedal too.
In NZ electricity is 68% hydro, geothermal and wind, and the rest is mostly gas (with waste steam used by the dairying industry). So for me it is probably closer to 4 grams of CO2 per km ridden on my e-bike, and my car is closer to 200 grams of CO2 per km. Or my e-bike is 50 times more efficient, it weighs about 50 times less, and doesn't contribute to traffic congestion.
Electric cars may not stack up environmentally (although there would be less particulates in the actual places where people live), but if you get someone out of a car and onto an e-bike that's pretty darn good. They'll be emitting only 4% (in my case) of the CO2 they were before, and they'll be demanding better bike infrastructure too. Out of my bike, my e-bike and my car, I'd rather get wherever I need to go on my e-bike.
- 5 September 2010 at 01:14
- David Hembrow said...
Brent: You're arguing about how many grams it might be within a small range of figures. The figure you've given shows no improvement over a perfectly average petrol car. I'm afraid that to me, this does not represent progress.
Erik: You're misunderstanding what is meant by the ~10000 figure for conversion between kWh and BTUs. This is the equivalent coal figure for power stations, also included in the link to wikipedia which you supplied. I'd already allowed for the inefficiency in burning coal in the figures which I used so the roughly 3400 figure is correct.
High speed rail uses considerably more energy than lower speed trains. How could it be otherwise ? Aerodynamic drag increases with the square of the speed. There is a reason why the motors on the record breaking TGV had to be uprated to 19.6 MW in place of the usual 9.3 MW. These are enormous and powerful motors, consuming vast amounts of electricity.
In comparison with aircraft, you're right that the trains are longer and thinner, which perhaps helps. However, they are also operating in much thicker air than an aircraft, and that has a huge effect on the energy consumption at speed.
- 5 September 2010 at 01:20
- David Hembrow said...
Matt: You never get back out of a battery all of the energy that you put in. In the case of NiMH batteries, in ideal conditions you can only get back 2/3rds of the energy. The rest disappears as heat (I don't have the figures for Lithium cells, I'm afraid, but you won't get near 100% with those either). Ideal conditions are probably not the conditions in which most people charge their batteries. It's reasonable to assume 50% in real life.
So you'll use about 1 kWh to charge your battery. In coal equivalent, that's a bit more than half a kg of coal, which you suggest will transport you for 50 km. You suggest that my figures are out by a factor of about 2.5. This may well be, for particular users and different bikes. However, the energy consumption is still high for what you get. It makes your bike's energy usage roughly comparable with a car with four or five people in it instead of roughly comparable with a car with two people in it.
It's really not that impressive.
You're right to say that NZ's generation of renewable energy is high by the standards of other countries. In itself, this is rather a good thing.
However, it's not 100% good. There was a lot of controversy over the dams, which cause quite a lot of environmental problems in themselves, and the percentage of electricity from hydro sources has actually decreased over the last few years, apparently in preference for burning more coal and gas.
- 5 September 2010 at 01:38
- Brent said...
"You're arguing about how many grams it might be within a small range of figures."
I'm not sure I understand. Isn't 142 grams per mile (electric) about a 70 percent reduction over 465 grams per mile (petrol)? That reduction seems significant and remarkable.
The guy at the link below figures driving his electric Tesla Roadster is about as carbon efficient as riding his bicycle:
- 5 September 2010 at 01:39
- Erik Sandblom said...
David, high-speed trains make fewer stops than slower trains. Actually commuter trains are the most energy-intensive because they stop once every 4-5 minutes. Fast trains only stop once every 30-60 minutes. Trains weigh about 500 to 1000 kilos per seat, so all that stopping and starting costs a lot of energy.
A TGV Duplex draws 0,047 kWh/pkm at the pantograph between Paris and Lyon at 70% occupancy (they have 545 seats).
Estimating Emissions from Railway Traffic page 74
There are additional inefficiencies, among them conversion to the right kind of electricity in the catenary. In Sweden, all trains draw 0,130 kwh/pkm. However, the long-distance trains operated by SJ only draw 0,08 kwh/pkm. Though SJ's trains are faster (200 km/h), they make fewer stops and the flexible prices result in higher average occupancy.
Here are my calculations (in Swedish)
Med hopfällbar elcykel till Gotland
The numbers show how much power the railway buys from the power company. They do not take into account how the power company generates the power.
- 5 September 2010 at 01:41
- Taliesin said...
We live in an age of hyper-mobility, at least in the developed world. This hyper-mobility is completely dependant on plentiful high quality energy sources such as petrol.
No conceivable system of transport can deliver the same hyper-mobility as the car dominated one we live in while using less energy. Delivering the same service we can currently get from the petrol car using public transport or electric cars is not going to use much less energy.
Bicycles are more environmentally friendly than any other form of transport (excluding walking) because they force us to work within the power output (and reasonable daily energy use) of the human body.
Even if we grant that electric cars will be charged using largely renuable energy (a big if), that energy still comes with a significant opportunity cost. The labour and materials needed build wind turbines or hydro-electric dams could have been used in insulating homes, building public transport systems or cycle paths.
- 5 September 2010 at 02:14
- Michael D said...
Your argument that buses are no better than cars has much more to do with the social service role of transit in car-oriented places, than with anything general about buses. Human Transit has a post explaining this.
- 5 September 2010 at 02:29
- christhebull said...
The weird thing is that in major cities, all this energy in petrol is being used to move £50,000 Range Rovers around at roughly the same average speed as a £50 bicycle off eBay.
Surely the automobile age was about cruising around at highway speeds, rather than being in a traffic jam with bikes filtering past you while you are still using all that petrol to go nowhere, the automotive equivalent of a dinosaur running on the spot? [To that effect, coach and taxi drivers are awful for leaving their engines idling...]
I like trains though. They never cut me up or overtake stupidly. Also, I can do some reading or other pursuits and I can take my bike with me. I think the cleaner image with electric trains might be something to do with the indirect nature of the emissions as opposed to the direct emissions of steam engines...
- 5 September 2010 at 03:01
- David Hembrow said...
More replies overnight.
Brent: Electric bikes being comparable with full cars for efficiency is only "remarkable" if we think the efficiency of cars is also remarkable. I don't think it is.
The Tesla guy is being rather silly in order to make an amusing point. I'm sure he eats on days that he drives as well as on days that he cycles.
Erik: Thanks for those figures. I've seen figures somewhere which suggested that he most efficient trains in the UK are the London commuter trains. These are slow speed trains, which invariably are packed well beyond their seating capacity. They stop a lot, but they still have a good opportunity to be efficient.
The TGV figures are, as you point out, incomplete. However, if you're Swedish figures are correct then the best trains in Sweden, which run most full, manage about 10 times the efficiency of an average car with single occupancy. That's about 2.5x the efficiency of an average car with four people in it. Compare with a Prius and you're struggling to find much of a difference. That's about as good as it gets for trains, and similar to figures I've seen before. It's still a lot of energy and they don't actually use it as efficiently as their promoters would have us believe. We're somehow supposed to be amazed because a packed train manages an efficiency only a bit better than a packed car.
The other problem with high speed trains (and motorways) is of course that they encourage long distance travel. People live further from their place of work and travel back and forth long distances every day. This is a problem by any motorised means.
Taliesin: I'm pretty much in agreement with you.
Michael D: The social service of local buses is much overstated. Motorised vehicles, which include buses, combined with unfriendly street design work to reduce the independence of many people by making the streets into places where they don't want to be.
- 5 September 2010 at 09:31
- kdt said...
I'm not going to join in the argument over the fine points of the statistics you cite - I think the post does an excellent job of making the much broader point that there is no form of transport that comes close to the efficiency of the human-powered bike.
That said, I do see the value of electric 'helper' motors for cargo bikes, particularly ones used to haul children in areas with hills. Making these available is likely to get more people who would otherwise be driving to use bikes, and will encourage those passenger-children to then do the same when they're older. That's me trading efficiency for advocacy, I suppose.
- 5 September 2010 at 14:04
- David Hembrow said...
kdt: You make a good point. I think there are actually quite a lot of instances where electric motors on bikes can make some sense, despite the inefficiencies.
They certainly have a part to play in helping people with disabilities to lead a normal life and cycle like everyone else does.
One of my daughters has a friend with a disability who has an electric assist bike. This is wonderful as without it she may not be able to cycle to school with the other children from her village, or go on trips with friends, for instance.
However, for averagely fit people they're simply not needed.
- 5 September 2010 at 14:15
- Erik Sandblom said...
Taliesin, we are not as hyper-mobile as you might think. The CTC says that two thirds of car trips in the UK are shorter than 5 miles. In Sweden, half are shorter than 5 km and half the population lives within 5 km of work, while two thirds live within 10 km. In the USA, half live within 5 miles of work. Clearly, many of these journeys can easily be done by bicycle.
De flesta rör sig inom tio kilometer - Ecoprofile
David, you're right that a car with four occupants can be about as energy-efficient as a train. However, cars are not typically used like that. In Sweden, half the car-miles driven are with a single driver. 84% of miles driven are with one or two occupants. I believe the average car occupancy in the UK is 1,6, so conditions are similar.
- 5 September 2010 at 16:01
- joshuadf said...
David, capital post that I will use as a reference. I think you should also do a followup on the mobility *advantages* of biking vs the low-carbon alternative of walking, which prior to about 1900 was by far the dominant mode of transport. Certainly a bike allows one more options of where to live, work, and shop, even if it's less than a car or train.
- 5 September 2010 at 16:17
- Brent said...
"Electric bikes being comparable with full cars for efficiency..."
I don't recall making that comparison. I thought I was comparing petrol cars and electric cars, with the petrol one having about three times the carbon emissions.
"The Tesla guy is being rather silly in order to make an amusing point."
Yes, I agree. But try as I might, I've found it hard to argue too much with his math. He makes the assumption that one has to eat more to cycle, and that this extra eating produces more carbon than simply driving. I realize that you reached the opposite conclusion, that people don't eat more when they cycle, but I have a hard time buying into that. More than one person has told me they cycle so they don't have to watch their diet. Racing cyclists, who live at the margin, consume huge quantities of food. The Tour de France is a carbon nightmare even without all the helicopters and cars following the peloton -- we could pack all those riders into a few buses and get them 175 km down the road for a fraction of the carbon they generate by eating.
I share your goal of getting more people on their bicycles, but I'm not really sure it will solve our carbon problems. As more than one person has pointed out, it's nearly impossible to be carbon neutral until we're dead:
- 5 September 2010 at 17:27
- Michael D said...
David, I'm not a fan of the "buses as social service" perspective. My point is that if you want transportation with a much lower footprint than the private automobile, buses (and trains) can do it. It requires focusing on transit along high-density corridors separated from traffic, and allowing/encouraging that high density to spring up around the transit. I think this has to go hand-in-hand with a focus on pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.
Electricity, I should add, can be generated from other sources -- and without a huge impact on the total cost of transit systems. Calgary's light rail runs entirely on wind power. If laws required that electricity costs reflected the externalities of generation, you'd see a pretty rapid shift away from coal.
One last point that I don't think has been touched upon is embodied energy. Bikes, cars, trains, and infrastructure of all kinds take energy and resources to construct, and in the case of cars, this amount can be quite comparable to the "operating" energy over the lifespan.
- 5 September 2010 at 17:50
- David Hembrow said...
Brent: The comparison with CO2 emissions will always depend on where your electricity comes from. Obviously it will be lower in places like France where nuclear dominates, or in New Zealand where hydro electric power dominates.
However, as coal stations are amongst the cheapest and fastest that can be built (the only real competitor in these terms being gas, which is also a fossil fuel), a rapid rise in energy requirements due to electric cars will result in the extra energy needed being likely to come from these less clean sources.
Not everyone is, or wants to be, a racing cyclist.
The human body requires a level of exercise to remain healthy. Not exercising is a major health risk. One way of achieving a reasonable level of exercise is to ride a bike for normal utility purposes. Nothing extreme is needed. It certainly makes a lot more sense than driving to a gym in order to take exercise (a point that the Tesla guy himself also makes at the end of his post).
While racing cyclists eat well, they don't overdo it. There are plenty of non cyclists who eat rather more than they do, even when you don't include the extreme types.
I do race a bit myself. Back in June, I took part in a six hour race, covering 235 km in that time. My effort came to the equivalent of around 3700 calories more than usual for that day (there's a calculator here).
I'm vegan, so somewhat more efficient than average.
The link suggests that I consumed about an extra 4.2 kWh over the six hours. That's about 0.01 kWh per km at the fastest, and therefore least efficient, speed I can sustain over six hours. That's quite a lot less than the amount that the Tesla chap reckons he consumes when cycling at a much lower speed.
I still don't think the figures are coming out as remotely comparable, even when leaning on "clean" sources of electricity.
- 5 September 2010 at 18:33
- David Hembrow said...
Michael: You say that "Calgary's light rail runs entirely on wind power."
I'm afraid that is also a bit of a nonsense. It's a greenwash statement. I have no figures for this light rail system, but if it's not making particularly good use of the energy produced by wind power it would be better for that energy to be used for something else - and the more polluting source used currently by "something else" to be turned down a notch.
The problem with having a "much lower footprint" is that typically we're still talking about using all of the same energy over just a slightly longer period of time. PT is not particularly frugal. If we accept that fossil fuels are running low, and we want to do something about this problem, then a few % points difference, or even a doubling in efficiency is actually no big deal. You're talking about making the resource last maybe another decade, not for another thousand years. I'd rather like to leave some of this stuff for my great great grand-children, and their descendants to use.
I agree with you on the other points, though. In particular embedded energy, which is often forgotten. The embedded energy of electric vehicles is large, particularly due to the batteries which themselves have a short life-span. A lifespan of 500 charges, or 5 years (even if not used at all), is quite good for Lithium rechargeables.
- 5 September 2010 at 18:47
- Erik Sandblom said...
David and Michael, I don't think it's nonsense to say that Calgary's light rail runs completely on wind power. I'm assuming that's what they pay the power company to deliver. Other clients pay them for coal power, but that's up to them.
It's just like when I buy ecological vegetables at the grocery store. The same store sells "bad" vegetables and meat to other customers, so in a sense I'm contributing to that, but the fact is that I'm not paying for what I don't buy.
At the end of the day, comparing bicycling to public transportation is interesting but perhaps a side track from effective bicycle advocacy. Many people who cycle find public transport to be a reassuring backup.
- 5 September 2010 at 19:09
- Matt said...
""The Tesla guy is being rather silly in order to make an amusing point."
Yes, I agree. But try as I might, I've found it hard to argue too much with his math."
There's at least one glaring omission in his maths: the fact that he completely fails to take into account the carbon balance of growing and transporting the food which the cyclist consumes. Like the fuel mix used to generate the electricity, this will vary widely from cyclist to cyclist.
Here, David JC MacKay claims that for a typical diet, walking uses 1/4 as much energy overall than driving a normal car. Here is the claim that cycling is 3 times as efficient as walking, which would make cycling twelve times as efficient as driving. From these claims, unless an electric car is twelve times more efficient than a petrol car (I think not), it's better to cycle.
- 5 September 2010 at 19:59
- Michael D said...
"...if it's not making particularly good use of the energy produced by wind power it would be better for that energy to be used for something else..."
The vast majority of electricity in Alberta is generated from coal and gas. If the C-Train weren't buying wind power, that wind power would not be redirected anywhere else -- as someone has to pay for the increased cost relative to fossil fuels. It's important to note here that the C-Train generates more in fares than Calgary spends on light rail operating costs, which should render arguments regarding public subsidies moot.
The point isn't so much about Calgary, but that in practice you can have transit (e.g. light rail or trolleybuses) that relies little on fossil fuels, and which will be able to withstand a shift to a world with scarce fossil fuel.
- 5 September 2010 at 20:44
Hi David,
Great number crunching - I enjoy these posts, thank you. It is hard to know where to stop when comparing the energy consumption of a human but ultimately all of this comes down to two things: there are too many of us and, we (in the 'first' world) consume too much.
I have an e-assist bicycle (a dutch model) with a 252Wh Li-ion battery and 250W motor. With this and me pushing hard up my hilly 22km (quite a few 10% gradients) commute, I can average 25km/h. It cannot be used as a 'moped' which is a good thing IMO.
This battery lasts me for about 80km over our hilly terrain. In the hot, humid summers here it really helps a lot (I might not be disabled but on some summer days I feel like I am...). I can see how it is completely unnecessary in the NL for someone like me.
Assuming that I actually use 350Wh to charge the battery (I really must measure this), this means I produce 200g of CO2(e) for that 70km journey assuming electricty is ALL from coal, which is likely here. Our electricity is 100% 'green' - at least that's what we pay for - (that could just mean the 'promise' to plant a tree... who knows?) so supposedly the emissions are zero, but that is clearly nonsense. I hope to generate this power from solar alone soon.
If I assume that the electricity is 100% from coal, I produce about 3g CO2(e) per km on my e-assist bicycle.
My very efficent, small, EU made car produces 130g CO2(e) per km.
Of course, I'm planning on changing my commuting machine so that what I lose on the hills I can gain on the flat bits...although I suspect I'm going to have to increase my baked bean intake somewhat...
Paul Martin
Brisbane, Australia
- 6 September 2010 at 00:11
- Brent said...
"From these claims, unless an electric car is twelve times more efficient than a petrol car (I think not), it's better to cycle."
I'm not sure this claim controls for speed. If I have my math right here, the Roadster traveling around 20 mph (30 kph) would use about 9 kWh per 100 km*, while a 90 kg cyclist would use roughly 10 kWh per 100km.
One incidental observation: in California, the largest users of electricity are the various oil refineries (or maybe the second largest). I've been dying to know how much electricity is used to produce one gallon (or liter) of petrol, and posed the question many times on message boards. The answers vary from 3 kWh to 14 kWh per gallon (about 1 - 3 kWh per liter). Recently, Nissan started using the number of 7.5 kWh** per gallon, which I guess is as good as any. If Nissan is right, you would be able to drive an electric car (at 160 wH/km) some 47 km on the electricity used just in the production of about 4 liters of petrol. To put it another way, petrol pollutes hugely at least twice: once in its refining and once in its burning. And this ignores the carbon costs of extracting, shipping, pumping, transporting, etc.
- 6 September 2010 at 03:44
- David Hembrow said...
Brent: Your figures are not believable. My ride of 235 km, so fast as possible, consumed an extra 3700 calories, which is approximately equal to 4kWh. This is much less than Tesla like to claim for power consumption of a human.
But it's not only Tesla themselves, Evnut also appears to be less than an impartial source of information. While they're concerned about the additional costs of producing petrol they seem not to be concerned about the additional costs of producing electricity.
A significant proportion of electricity produced by a power station is used inside the power station. Something has to run cooling pumps, control/safety systems, regulators etc. Quite a lot of energy is inevitably lost in distribution, especially if power stations are located far from where the electricity is used.
It's a similar story with any energy source. There are always costs. Power stations have to be built, emissions from construction are enormous. Uranium, coal, iron and copper (amongst other things) need to be mined, refined and made into components or fuel for power stations. Silicon solar cells have considerable embedded energy. Fibreglass for wind turbines also has an impact. All the components and fuels need transporting.
There is no method of generating electricity which doesn't have external costs. If you're going to count them for one source you really ought to count them for all sources.
- 6 September 2010 at 07:40
- Green Idea Factory said...
David: Under EU regulations, pedelecs (most electric-assist bikes) have assistance only to 25km/h, but can still go faster unassisted. It would follow that the same cyclist could go farther and/or faster on a pedelec than a normal like. Of course aerodynamic enhancements such as the ones you champion can help, too!
Also reducing this argument to CO2 plays right into the hands of those who want to, e.g. power private urban electric automobiles with wind, tidal, solar or micro-hydro.
- 6 September 2010 at 08:16
- David Hembrow said...
Green Idea Factory: One of the many problems with electric bikes is that above 25 km/h you're carting around a load of weight which does nothing useful at all, but does take energy from the rider. There are also transmission losses due to the motor coupling either to a wheel or the drive-chain. As a result, electric bikes are inevitably less efficient, which makes them slower with a shorter range than non-assisted bikes.
They also have a much shorter lifespan due to the short life of batteries. Even the manufacturers only claim around 500 charges are possible. That's really not much for a bike used on a daily basis (and it'll be reduced by various factors such as by charging in the cold). The shelf life of such a battery is only around 5 years even if it's not used, so there's no point even in buying a spare to keep your bike going after the manufacturer discontinues the battery.
Compared with normal bikes, they have a very much shorter lifespan and/or will require a lot of extra expensive work (on a five or ten year old bike?) in order to keep running.
Quite honestly, they're mostly not very nice bikes, either... (yes, that's opinion, not fact).
This is why while they're great for those who really need them (disabilities, perhaps old age etc.), they're really rather a bad idea for those who really don't need them.
I agree with you about reducing the argument to CO2. It clouds the real issue, which is that motorised transport consumes vasts amounts of energy in an inefficient manner. We should not waste energy, wherever it comes from. All energy has a cost, even "clean" energy, of which we have a limited supply.
If the cleaner energy is all used to charge electric vehicles then it simply means that dirtier energy has to be used for other purposes. We can only use each kWh generated (equivalent to a whole day of physical work) once.
- 6 September 2010 at 08:45
@David: Bikes without electric motors are quicker than those with them (which are limited to 25 km/h).
Please elaborate on why you think this statement holds true, because in my knowledge electric assist bikes only stops the engine at 25 km/t, you can still pedal faster.
I met one yesterday which not only did that, but also, at 30 km/t started recharging the battery which was lovely downhill because then he did not get into dangerous descent speeds.
- 6 September 2010 at 09:04
- Brent said...
"Your figures are not believable."
For the 9 kWh / 100 km at 30 kph figure, I'm relying on published numbers from Tesla. The figures may be unbelievable, but I haven't yet found any credible evidence to disprove them, despite some considerable efforts on a few blogs I read.
Similarly, I used evnut.com to illustrate the Nissan number 7.5 kWh to refine a gallon, but one can find the same number from other sources, including Nissan themselves. But you're right to point out that there is some doubt about that number. I started a thread some years ago on a Tesla-related site. The community there has yet to find a reliable number:
- 6 September 2010 at 09:09
- David Hembrow said...
Jon: It's quite simple. Extra weight costs energy to transport it. This especially applies every time you need to accelerate or climb a hill, but also on the flat. Electric assist adds weight. What's more, there is a mechanical coupling between the electric drive and the bicycle. When not in use this will still inevitably cause some drag. I've not measured it, but wheels with electric motors in them feel a lot like those with hub dynamos. They don't spin as freely as a normal hub (moving the motor to the drivechain changes but doesn't avoid this problem).
- 6 September 2010 at 09:22
- David Hembrow said...
Brent: This is getting repetitive and I think it's time for Occam's Razor.
The promoters of electric (and non-electric) cars rely somewhat on a smoke-screen which makes it difficult to find reliable figures, and on the public's lack of understanding of these figures.
It is not in the interest of Tesla to be a particularly good source for accurate information about cycling.
The company simultaneously boasts about the availability of "288 horsepower" which equates to over 400 kW, or the equivalent power of around four thousand average cyclists, while trying to talk you into thinking that they offer an energy efficient form of transport.
It's quite simple. To move the small mass of a bicycle at low speed simply takes a lot less energy than to move the much larger mass of a car at typical car speeds.
Cars are not designed to be remotely as efficient as bicycles are. You can do a very simple experiment to prove this to yourself. Simply try pushing a car vs. pushing a bicycle (even an electric bicycle). Is it realistic to believe that the car travels on an equivalent amount of energy to that generated by a human sitting on a bicycle ?
It would be truly extraordinary if it were true that it took less energy to drive a car than to ride a bike. And indeed, this is not the case, no matter how many people try how hard to cloud the issue. I'm afraid I've got work to get on with and simply don't have time to read many different implausible ideas from around the web and try to discredit them.
The figures I presented in the original post are reasonably accurate.
- 6 September 2010 at 09:41
- Green Idea Factory said...
David: Thanks. About the 25km/h speed thing, I actually think most commuter or utility cycling is done at less than that speed, and up to that speed a (charged!) pedelec is easier to pedal. If you have a tailwind your bike will get boosted or directly (as opposed to with an intermediary like a windfarm!).
I have lived in very hilly places such as Prague, San Francisco or Washington D.C. Granny gears reach their limit, though it was very rare that I ever dismounted. A bike which gets you over some steep obstacles is great, and I think some of the time I would not any assist. Also there is the sweat factor when it's hot, and I would be curious to see an energy comparison of an electric bike assist vs. taking a hot shower. (To make things clear, I also lived in NYC and never wanted electric assist even in the nasty summers. It's very flat).
I cannot argue against your battery-lifetime comments, but while pedelecs are much more complicated than normal bikes, companies like Bosch and Shimano have introduced their first solutions for pedelecs, and this should mean that stuff will be more robust (and these companies are in no danger of disappearing).
My issue about "green energy" is that if a vehicle is powered this way it still has all the other problems and external costs, especially if it is a private, urban vehicle.
- 6 September 2010 at 11:52
- neil said...
I agree that electric cars still have all the car-head and anti-community problems that petrol cars do. But surely it's better to have electric assist cycles (not electric mopeds) if that will persuade people to cycle who are otherwise put off by the distance or hills.
I think your point (as always) is that good infrastructure is cheaper and better way to achieve most of this. and I think our struggle (as always) is to understand how that can be achieved (technically and politically) outside NL.
BTW - 25km/h is the top assisted speed (for those that conform), you could cycle faster yourself, just the assist should switch off at that speed.
- 6 September 2010 at 16:24
Okay, so you might get a lower top speed, but I think adding electric assist will also make the average speed higher.
It might not be as efficient, but you talked about quicker, not efficient.
- 6 September 2010 at 20:13
- Green Idea Factory said...
I think it is important that pedelecs are targeted at people/families who are in the market for a second or first private car, for those times when going long distance cannot be done easily with a bodylec* in combination with the train, or when there is no time and when any kind of car (even a shared one) is overkill.
Cargo bikes with a box have a limited market outside of flat places... if I lived in a hilly place and had kids I know what I would do.
We need to make people clear about the continuing externalities of electric automobiles (and tax them), and we ought to put pressure on pedelec makers to have very long warranties on components which cannot be fixed on the side of the road in Afghanistan (no disrespect intended towards the wonderful South Asian cycling culture).
*Body electricity pedal bicycle
- 6 September 2010 at 20:38
Plenty of responses on this topic and I am not going to guess which is the right answer but I agree 53 euros is cheap for the amount of energy you buy. There are some good discussion papers available on the energy needed to produce food but few comparing the eating habits of cyclists and car drivers and bus or train passengers. I estimate my ride to work needs 800 calories so I expect to eat more than a car driver but perhaps I eat better food? It may be possible to watch the food consumption figures for China during the shift from a nation of cyclists to a nation of drivers. The time and effort saving mind set from the car culture may be mirrored in the adoption of junk food.
For fun I'd like to say that a cyclist doing the weekly shopping won't overload those panniers with bottles of water from France and is less likely to waste food, having both a good appetite and some understanding of the energy needed to get some more.
We might like to consider the impact of the recent BP oil spill along with the ongoing mess in Nigeria against the diffuse yet real damage we cause by throwing out food that we don't eat. Do car drivers create more waste?
Mark Garrett, Bristol UK
- 7 September 2010 at 10:47
I take from your discussion that all powered transport is resource inefficient. There is little point in any effort to make slightly more efficient vehicles. The goal should be to make less resource intensive sources of energy. Essentially, fossil fuels must be abandoned in favor of renewables. I highly recommend the film "Fuel."
And I agree about the recent BP disaster. All oil companies put profits ahead of any ethical behavior to an obscene extreme. Remember what Dutch Royal Shell did to Ken Saro-Wiwa.
- 12 September 2010 at 06:04
Tesla is playing little math games, specifically treating the human body as if it were a simple machine, with a simple energy in/energy out function, and perhaps even one that can be turned off like a car.
And it ain't. It's a biological process that, like the coal furnace, operates 24/7 and LOAD BALANCES to maintain efficiency.
Yes, it's true that when I'm racing and training and have 5% body fat I may consume several thousand calories a day . . . AND sleep for twelve hours to conserve energy as well.
However, when I am not racing or training and have 10% body fat I assure you, if I spend a week riding to the shop for every meal and the next week having food delivered my food consumption does not vary. Not by one bite (racers get in the habit of monitoring their fuel just like Grand Prix auto racing teams do).
The fact of the matter is that most of us, who are not anywhere near pushing the limits, consume energy rather in excess of our actual needs; because we want to. We then find ways, usually insensible, of frittering them away until the load is balanced. If we should, for some reason, run a bit on the other side of the razor's edge, we find ways, again usually insensible, of slowing down a bit, maybe sleeping an extra 10 minutes and getting up off the couch a few times less . . . until the load is balanced.
We eat what we eat and the very tiny amounts of energy, because cycling is so efficient, that are expended in simple utility trips just go into the frittering away budget. People who take up utility cycling to loose weight are usually disappointed, even if they carefully control their diet in a LOWERED calorie state.
It isn't burning petroleum that is going to doom the planet; it is efficiency engineers who believe it would be a good thing to apply their "science" to the human metabolism and who think, for some strange reason, that it can actually be done that are going to doom humanity.
And when they plug you into the real matrix they won't feed you pictures of pretty women in red - that would be pointlessly inefficient.
- 18 September 2010 at 23:59
- dothebart said...
from my last cycling holiday in mallorca I can truly tell you that cyclists _DO_ eat more. I'd say at least twice as much.
- 13 December 2010 at 01:06
- David Hembrow said...
A "holiday in Mallorca" is by definition not a normal day. Probably these cyclists were doing more than they usually do, and in any case, people often eat more on holiday.
It being nearly Christmas now, we can expect that in the next few weeks a lot of people will over-indulge without taking any exercise at all.
- 13 December 2010 at 07:44
- dothebart said...
heh, yes. My daily commute is either 30 or 40 km whether I shortcut one way with the tram or not.
On Mallorca its been between 80 and 150 km with different elevations.
I just wanted to point out that it _does_ make a difference whether you go by bike or not how much hunger you get -> eat.
I've got no problems with that, since I like eating ;-)
I think its a perfect workout for an office job.
But if you sum up the numbers of everything else precisely, you should be accurate here too. I rather enjoy eating something tasty then draining my money into a car.
btw, i've read some numbers where they sum up, if you ate some beef from argentinia, _your_ carbon footprint to walk the 5 km to the shops instead to use a car is higher!
- 13 December 2010 at 11:18
- Erik Sandblom said...
dothebart, most people do not commute 30 km. In the USA, 50% of the working population commutes five miles (8km) or less to work.
In Sweden, two thirds of the population lives within 10 km of work.
De flesta rör sig inom tio kilometer - Ecoprofile
- 13 December 2010 at 12:43
- sundraparipooranan said...
Most fuels we are talking fossil fuels that have taken millions of year to form from the dead plants and animals under the pressure exerted deep inside the earth. So this blog is very useful to all to save our country thank you for posting.
Save fuel, Save Water, Save Electricity, Save Environment, Saving fuel, Fuel, Water, Electricity, Environment.
- 9 July 2014 at 12:21
- Simon Ravhøj said...
So, the oil rig gets the oil up emission free, the oil is transported emission free, the oil is refined to petrol emission free, the petrol is transported emission free ??
- 22 February 2015 at 14:07
- David Hembrow said...
Simon, I agree. Note also that coal has precisely the same problems as you mention.
- 22 February 2015 at 17:36


text:
2008 Honda Civic GX - Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Vehicle can be used with the Phill home refueling appliance from FuelMaker.
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo (KKCO) KKCO spoke with the Governor Wednesday as he traveled through Aspen. Governor Hickenlooper is hoping to see a lot more natural gas stations throughout Colorado.
He was in Detroit earlier this week, encouraging GM, Ford, and Chrysler to make more natural gas cars. It's a movement that's already catching on in the Grand Valley.
"How do we convince you guys that this is real," says Hickenlooper, referring to his efforts to convince Detroit automaker executives that natural gas cars are the future of the automobile industry. "It's at least a buck and a half per gallon equivalent cheaper, it burns cleaner, so it keeps our air cleaner; and it keeps us from sending billions of dollars to foreign dictatorships." Governor Hickenlooper has partnered with Republican Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, and is trying to get other states on board. "Most importantly, it creates jobs not just in Oklahoma and Colorado, but in 24 other states in the United States," says Hickenlooper.
Fuoco Motors in Grand Junction is already selling natural gas cars that get 38 miles per gallon on the highway, 32 in the city.
"I think we're just touching the tip of the iceberg right now, as far as natural gas, once there are more filling stations and more companies get behind making them. Honda has always been a front-runner when it comes to hybrids," says Lynn Robison, general sales manager at Fuoco Motors in Grand Junction.
Right now there's one natural gas station in Grand Junction. The city of Grand Junction has been using natural gas powered vehicles for several months. "We're saving approximately $2.50 a gallon, and that's equivalent to approximately $17,000 a year in savings," says Darren Starr, Solid Waste & Streets Manager with the City of Grand Junction.
And that's something Governor Hickenlooper himself is applauding. "What we're hoping to do is have everyone follow your guy's lead," says Hickenlooper. The governor is hoping the trend will continue to catch on in the Centennial state. "This is a transition process by which we can accelerate pretty rapidly to a green economy."
We spoke with Encana oil and gas officials. They confirmed that some of the vehicles in their fleet are powered by natural gas. We also spoke with the Western Slope Oil and Gas Association. They want to commend Governor Hickenlooper for his efforts to bring natural gas vehicles to Colorado, and the Western Slope.
So what will one of these cars cost you? Natural gas compact cars are selling for around $28,000. If you buy one, you're eligible for a Colorado tax credit of over $5,000.
Automakers will offer natural gas trucks as well.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Showing 1-19 of 19 items found in Sports & Gaming
- Sort by:
- <
- 1
- >
Tennis anyone? Multiple courts for recreational or tournament use - come join in the fun!
This nine-hole course is par 36/38. Located 3 miles West of Mattoon, Il. on Route 16.
This 18-hole, par 72 course features moderate to gently rolling terrain, manicured greens, a full-service pro shop and a food court.
18-hole golf course set in the countryside of Windsor. The Fox offers a golf experience for everyone from the casual golfer to those looking for a real challenge. The course was built on 160 acres of rolling farmland and woods in 1998. GPS ADDRESS: 1300 N 3050 E
Watch circular racing at this speedway.
32 bowling lanes, automatic scoring, free parking, lounge and food.
Watch modified midget racing at this speedway.
40 lanes, automatic scoring, ABC approved fluorescent lighting, seating for 200, free parking, restaurant and lounge.
14 tables, ample parking, arcades, dart games, restaurant, lounge, pro shop.
This 87,000-square-foot indoor sports center features a fitness center, four-lane competition grade track, indoor soccer field, five basketball/volleyball courts, two dance studios, two golf simulators, chipping and putting greens, and a climbing wall.
This 18-hole, par 70 course is a challenge for players of all levels. Fun course, lots of water - a good stop for all level players.
Tennis volleys heat up from every court at this Decatur sports complex.
Designed by legendary hall of fame player, Raymond Floyd, this signature course features large, undulating greens, wide rolling fairways and native grasses. Located on Decatur's south side, the Park District's newest course is designed for players of all skill levels. From five tee locations and multiple angels, this signature Floyd course is truly designed for the championship to the novice golfer. Red Tail provides multiple tee locations from Championship to Junior, driving range with double tees, golf academy programming, and first tee learning center.
Sometimes called the "shot-maker's" course, Scovill Golf Club is hilly and tree-lined. Golfers will enjoy the manicured fairways surrounded by natural plantings on Decatur's only Audubon sanctioned course. Scovill was designed by Tom Bendelow and redesigned by Dick Nugent. Scovill was named on one of the top 100 women-friendly course in the United States by Golf for Women. It is also the course most frequented by out-of-town golfers.
Iron Horse Golf Club features an 18-hole links style championship golf course with bent grass tees, fairways and greens. Iron Horse provides a challenge to the low handicapper and a fun, playable golf course for the high handicapper.
This nine-hole, par 35 course features a campground on premises, along with golfing/camping packages.
This country club features an 18-hole golf course.
Hickory Point was designed by leading golf course architect Larry Packard. It features flat, wide fairways, a lighted driving range and a special six-hole short course for beginners and youth.
The multiple soccer fields in this complex host a variety of leagues and tournaments.
- <
- 1
- >


text:
Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Flow Science was founded in 1980 by Dr. C. W. (Tony) Hirt, who was one of the principals in pioneering the "Volume-of-Fluid" or VOF method while working at the Los Alamos National Lab. FLOW-3D is a direct descendant of this work, but in the intervening years we have taken it to a much higher level with TruVOF, boasting major improvements in the accuracy of tracking distinct liquid/gas interfaces. FLOW-3D is about much more than just free-surface flows though. It is a complete multi-physics package with significant modeling capabilities including but not limited to fluid-structure interaction, 6-DoF moving objects, and multiphase flows. From the beginning, our goal and vision has been to provide our customers with excellence in flow modeling software and services. Our most recent strategic plan gives voice to this vision:
To be the only solution that engineers worldwide look to for answers to their free-surface problems; to deliver those answers accurately, quickly, and easily."
We know that modeling complex flow domains is not simple, so we give careful attention to each customer's special modeling needs. As a result, we expose a significant portion of our program to user interaction, avoiding the "black box" approach applied by other CFD packages. We support a stellar customer base of commercial, academic, and government users around the globe who use FLOW-3D to improve the world on a daily basis, a fact we are very proud of. We take care of these users directly, and through a high-quality channel of affiliated companies (Flow Science Japan, Flow Science Deutschland GmbH, Flow Science Latin America SAS and Flow Science Software Trading Co., Ltd (China)) and independent partners.
Flow Science was among the top 40 technology companies in New Mexico to receive the prestigious Flying 40 award. The Flying 40 recognizes New Mexico's fastest-growing technology companies. Flow Science was honored at Technology Ventures Corporation's Award Reception on June 22, 2016.
Flow Science has been recognized as a high growth company and job creator and was honored at the Northern New Mexico 20/20 Campaign Award Reception on November 13, 2014.
Flow Science has been named one of the Best Places to Work in New Mexico, an award given out by Albuquerque Business First. Flow Science was one of ten companies that received this honor in the Medium Company category.
On November 13, 2012, Flow Science, won for the second year in a row, the Intel® Cluster Ready Voyager Award, part of the Intel® Cluster Ready Partner Appreciation Awards at SC 12. The Voyager Awards recognize those organizations that have contributed to Intel® Cluster Ready advancement, total available market growth and helped penetrate the much sought after but elusive "missing middle" for customers moving to cluster-based solutions.
Flow Science's unwavering commitment to their employees' long-term financial well-being has earned them national acclaim. An independent judging panel of employee benefits experts named Flow Science as one of the 2012 winners of The Principal® 10 Best Companies for Employee Financial Security.
In November of 2011, Flow Science was a recent honoree of the Intel® Cluster Ready Voyager Award, part of the Intel Cluster Ready Partner Appreciation Awards at SC 11. The Voyager Awards recognize those organizations that have contributed to Intel Cluster Ready advancement, total available market growth and helped penetrate the much sought after but elusive "missing middle" for customers moving to cluster-based solutions.
On April 16, 2011, the Santa Fe Professional Business Women of New Mexico awarded Flow Science their prestigious 2010-2011 Employer of the Year for family-friendly policies and practices designation for the state of New Mexico.
In 2010, Flow Science was awarded two awards for excellence: the Employer of the Year, awarded by the Santa Fe Professional Business Women and the Business Excellence Award by the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce.


text:
We catch up with the darling duo that is Johnnyswim to discuss the story behind their honest sound plus what they're looking forward to creating for their fans.
Watch a recap of Day One of Lollapalooza.
We chat with the self-proclaimed "psych-soul" group, Fly Golden Eagle. Find out why they love festival crowds and what they hope their fans experience at Lolla 2014.
The Federal Aviation Administration has closed its review of two YouTube videos taken by an aerial camera during last weekend's Lollapalooza music festival in Grant Park.
Lollapalooza can get fans excited, but we don't recommend doing what one fan did Saturday night.
One moment, Ben Lenet and his two friends were enjoying the Arctic Monkeys close out the first night of the three-day fest. The next, Lenet, 29, was defending himself from a man who had "clamped" his teeth into...


text:
News 12 at 11 o'clock / Saturday, May 19, 2012
WAYNESBORO, Ga. -- A school bus accident Saturday morning involving six Burke County school buses sent 60 people to the hospital. Many of those were students.
Those not hurt in the accident returned to Burke County Middle School on Saturday evening to be reunited with their parents.
There were a lot of mixed feelings as the students returned to our area.
Parents were upset and kids were frightened, but all were relieved. Cars filled the parking lot at Burke County Middle School as parents anxiously awaited the return of their children.
"[I'm] just hoping he's OK even though they say he is and ready for him to get home," said parent Shera Owens.
Parents started arriving at the school mid afternoon after they heard about the accident.
"I said, 'What happened?' He said, 'I dunno, I seen the bus go off the road and then my bus hit the bus in the front and then I don't know what they're gonna do,'" said parent Monica Soto. "Teacher didn't call me, school didn't call me. Teacher called me at 3. School called me around 3:30 to 4."
That message said the students would be back around five and a little after six, those buses finally rolled in.
"It was like a day that I just wanted to get back to Waynesboro," said student Alliyah Habersham.
Isaiah and Kiara Soto were celebrating their birthday and taking their first trip to Six Flags, but it wasn't quite the day they imagined.
"One of the kids got a broke rib and a sprained neck and everybody just started crying after that," Isaiah said.
"It was nerve-wracking and really scary," Kiara said.
For Isaiah, it left a lasting impression.
"I'm scared to get back on the bus right right now," he said. "I'm real scared."
Many parents, including Monica Soto, were frustrated by the lack of communication from the school.
"If you can call me and let me know it's a non-emergency message, you can call me and let me know this was going on and we'll call you with more information," she said.
Now that they're children are home safe, they just hope those injured students get well soon.
"I was really relieved that most of my friends and most of the people on the buses were OK," Kiara said.
The 60 injured children were taken to area hospitals. Their parents had to drive down and pick them up.
We tried to talk with the superintendent and the principal, but neither was available for comment. We did talk with a school representative throughout the day, but the information she was able to give us was very limited to he details of the crash.
They are planning to reschedule the trip, but many students and parents were unsure whether or not they would go.


text:
Crystals — Indexing & Abstracting
Crystals is covered by following databases and archives:
Indexing & Abstracting Services
Full-text Archives
- CLOCKSS (Digital Archive)
e-Helvetica (Swiss National Library Digital Archive)
The Swiss National Library preserves a full digital copy of the content of this journal. The digital archive is accessible through the e-helvetica portal.
Content Aggregators
Crystals EISSN 2073-4352 Published by MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland RSS E-Mail Table of Contents Alert


text:
Pedestrian Possibly Hit by Train
Published: Saturday, April 6, 2013 at 11:54 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, April 6, 2013 at 11:54 p.m.
A pedestrian apparently hit Saturday by a CSX train has been found in the vicinity of Gary Road and Interlachen Parkway.
A Lakeland Police Department crime scene investigation team is working what appears to be a train-pedestrian incident, Captain John H. Thomason confirmed slightly after 11 p.m. tonight.
LPD began reporting by radio after 9 p.m. that a CSX train was stopped. CSX was advising LPD the train had possibly struck someone.
Police officers and fire fighters walked beside the tracks, searching. At least three units were on the call, with more coming, radio comments said.
Because the body was just found, no further information is available. Thomason said he will write up a report when more is known.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


text:
IVP Portfolio
Throughout its history, IVP has consistently generated an internal rate of return that is more than twice the industry average. Even so, we refuse to rest on our laurels. Our 32 year IRR is 43.2%. We work hard to become the preferred investment partner for the most competitive technology and media companies. From computing to communications to the cloud, IVP remains in the forefront of identifying tomorrow's market leaders.


text:
Instructional Videos
All of our videos are produced and offered in High Definition, so you can examine each trick or lesson in full detail. We also offer mobile-friendly versions of our videos so you can access our clips on your iPhone, iPad or Android device while out on the boat riding with your friends.
Content Library
Our extensive content library is the largest and most detailed collection of wakeboard instruction in the world. Use interactive tools like our Trick Scrollers and Photo Sequence modules to see each trick in extreme detail. Our library pages break down all of the important parts of whatever trick you are interested in, so you can learn how to ride better...faster.
Wakeboard Forums
Ask our professional coaches questions related directly to the trick you are working on and get feedback immediately. Search through our archive of thousands of posts to read how other members fixed their problems. Our forum is a great way to interact with our coaches and fellow LearnWake members.
Video Analysis
Upload a video and get detailed analysis from our professional coaches. We will actually create a video completely customized for you detailing what problems and solutions we suggest for you. It's almost like having a professional coach sitting right in the boat with you.
Professional Coaching
LearnWake's team of instructors are experienced riders and coaches ready to pass all of our knowledge on to you. All instruction is directed by world-renowned wakeboard coach and rider, Kyle Schmidt. You get personalized instruction straight from the guy that create the Wakeboard industry's top-selling DVD's of all-time, The Book Instructional DVD Series. With over 15 years of coaching riders of all levels, you are guaranteed the best coaching that money can buy!
Is LearnWake For You?
Can't find a professional coach, instructor or camp near you? Are you hitting a barrier in your wakeboard progression? Well, look no further, LearnWake offers an affordable convenient solution for riders of all levels. So whether you need help picking out your first wakeboard, or trying to land your first 720, we've got you covered. Sign up for a free membership and browse around our site. Once you are ready, you can add our premium service to your account and get your wakeboard progression back on track.


text:
About the Book
Bethany Griffin continues the journey of Araby Worth in Dance of the Red Death—the sequel to her teen novel Masque of the Red Death. Lauren DeStefano, author of the New York Times bestselling Chemical Gardens trilogy, called Masque of the Red Death "luscious, sultry, and lingeringly tragic."
In Dance of the Red Death, Araby's world is in shambles—betrayal, death, disease, and evil forces surround her. She has no one to trust. But she will fight for herself, for the people she loves, and for her city. Her revenge will take place at the menacing masked ball. It could destroy her and everyone she loves . . . or it could turn her into a hero.
With a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, Bethany Griffin concludes her tragic and mysterious Red Death saga about a heroine that young adult readers will never forget.
Everything is on fire.
Araby Worth's city is being torn apart by death, disease, and corrupt forces wanting to claim it for their own. She has lost her home. Her best friend is dying. Her mother has been kidnapped. The boy who made her feel something again has betrayed her. And her father may be a murderer.
But Araby has found herself.
Despite the death and destruction all around her, she will fight for herself, for her friends, for her city. Her rebellion will take her, finally, to the mad prince's palace, for the decadent—and sinister—masked ball. It could be a trap. It could be the end of them all. Or it could be the moment that Araby becomes the kind of hero she never dreamed she could be.
The tragic, dark, and steamy conclusion to Bethany Griffin's Masque of the Red Death saga.
Educator and Librarian Resources
Critical Praise
"Griffin has successfully turned the short story into the type of YA saga that flies off the shelves. It is timely, well written, and quick paced. . . . In addition to being a fantastic read, this two-part saga would serve as a great companion to classroom units on Poe." — School Library Journal
Praise for Masque of the Red Death:"Fantastic, from the eye-catching cover to the growth of a heroine who might save the world. Tailor-made for popular consumption." — Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Masque of the Red Death:"Griffin delivers a seductively dark, decadently disturbing look at a society crumbling from within and without, infused with a romantic, steampunk air and Poe's own morbid sensibilities." — Publishers Weekly
Product Details
- Imprint: Greenwillow Books
- On Sale: 06/11/2013
- Pages: 352
- List Price: 9.99 USD
- BISAC1: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Romance / General
- BISAC2: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Science Fiction / General
- BISAC3: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Action & Adventure / General


text:
I know its not the fault of the music, but there's only 3 songs here, and two of them are cut. The Divided Sky is pretty good, and its funny to hear Trey say they are "Josie and the Pussycats" and call Junta and someone else "go-go dancers" (who then apparently get on stage to sing Foam) but still...since I personally am more rating the recordings than the shows, I'm going two stars here.
Thursday, 06/29/1989
The Front, Burlington, VT
Set 1: Possum > DividedDivided Sky, Foam
Average Song Gap: 4.33
Performers: Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon
Notes: This setlist is obviously incomplete, and the set in which these songs were performed is unknown.
Song Distribution:
2 Junta
1 The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday
1 The White Tape
Songs by Debut Year:
This show was part of the "1989 Tour."


text:
Well, I was really tired of MPlayer OSX.
It runs OK but, it looks like ninety years old man.
And also, the new technology Apple prevailed, such as Core Animation, Grand-Central Dispatch, even OpenCL, pushed me to give them a try.
So I started without even knowing how to program under Mac, came to know Xcode, Objective-C 2.0, cocoa and the Core family.
It is still in such a primary status, I will keep on enhance and figure out how to do this and how to do that.
Now it could do
- Multi-Screen Fullscreen support
- Apple Remote support
- Multi-Touch support
- Automatic find next proper file to play (if the file name ended with continuos number)
- Auto detect the encode method of subtitle file (with Universal Charset Detector)
* Now could support multiple sub files with different encode method
* Load subtitles while playing - just drag or double-click it
* Letterbox for the subtitles
- Snapshot
- Multi-Threaded ffmpeg support
- Change subtitle size while playing(except VOBSub)
- Remember last played time and resume playing
- OSD Display
- Multiple audio track
- Set aspect ratio freely
Required OS: 10.7
Tags: player , video , media , movies , mediaplayer
10 Opinions
Very good player!
Not only does it have a nice UI, but the effiency is great as well.
I have some videos with a high bitrate and 10-bit encoding which neither Perian nor VLC can play without decoding errors, artifacts etc. MPlayerX can.
Since the interface is so nice, I guess it will not only replace VLC for me (as a player for everything QT has problems with), but also QT as a standard player (e.g. Fullscreen without displaying black on other monitors).
I'm quite glad that there's a donate button!
My default movie player on OS X. If this is just the beginning, I can't wait to see how this develops over time!
really really nice player, keep up the good work!
i prefer it to mplayer osx extended, qt with perian, movist and vlc!
Very good video player with a VERY clean interface!
A really useful mplayer gui.
A mixture of this and mplayer enhanced would be the best. Nevertheless I rate mplayerx over mplayer enhanced.
I like the function to set the video speed most.
Fantastic video player. This has completely replaced VLC for me.
MPlayer OSX has more options, but the GUI and simplicity of this player along with the nice extras like auto-detection of next video in a sequence has won me over.
The only thing missing is an option to quick-toggle "always on top" and the little symbols on the window controls on mouseover. A desktop mode (where the video essentially turns into your wallpaper) would be nice as well.
Well done for someone who claims they don't really know what they're doing :)
I'd like for options to be able to not auto-start the video, and to leave the window open when the video is done, pretty please�
Nice this looks awsome :-)
Absolutely awesome!
Some qucik&dirty stats:
Playing a 350 mb XVID video. MBP, 2.9 Core 2 Duo 4GB.
MPlayer X
10-14% process
40-45 mb ram
Quicktime Perian
19-22 % process
60-65 mb
9-10% process
55-60 mb ram
MPlayer Extended
11-13% Process
65-75 mb ram
Movist FFmpeg
10-11% Process
55mb ram
Found a teeny bug though.. Sometimes if you pause a vid and start playing it, as I recall after the computer has gone to sleep and woken, the audio stops working. It plays for a second, stops, plays for the second, et cetera.. However, this is somewhat rare.
Looks very interesting and promising! :)
Multi-threaded video decoding? Yummy! :)


text:
Please log in or register to manage your account
Model: 36862 Item: KAT36862
Katun Performance® toners provide vivid, vibrant color reproduction as well as image quality, yields and performance that are equal to or better than that of the original manufacturer's products. Remanufactured Katun toners incorporate stringent quality control checkpoints into all phases of the toner cartridge remanufacturing process. These steps ensure consistent and reliable performance. Device Types: Laser Printer; Color(s): Magenta; Page-Yield: 21000; Supply Type: Toner.
Printerbazaar is a one-stop destination for all your office supplies. From highly durable branded printers to a plethora of accessories, you can get your suitable product at a competitive cost.
At Printerbazaar, we are committed to make your shopping experience hassle-free by conveying the best information. We understand that office related purchasing decisions are vital and thus the right comparisons are necessary before buying.
Katun Performance® KAT36860 e-Studio 2500 Compatible, New Build, TFC35K Toner, 24,000 Yield, Black
$61.98$4091 / each
Katun Performance® KAT28564 Compatible, New Build, 0384B003AA (GPR-18) Toner, 8,300 Yield, Black
$27.03$1676 / each


text:
J.C. Penney's banks raised its credit limit and the Plano-based company said it's a show of support from its lenders
J. C. Penney Co. said today that it has amended its bank line of credit to increase its borrowing capacity to $1.85 billion from $1.50 billion.
Penney said the amendment increases its liquidity and provides additional financial flexibility to support its difficult transformation under CEO Ron Johnson. The credit line may be used for general corporate purposes and the pricing and maturity terms remain unchanged.
No funds have been drawn under the agreement, the company said.
Penney chief financial officer Ken Hannah said, "As we enter the second year of our transformation, today`s announcement reflects the confidence of our banking group in our long-term strategy and further strengthens our liquidity position as we continue to execute our plan."
A Penney spokesman said the increase in the credit limit is not related to the bond notice it received in January.
Last week, Penney asked a Delaware court to stop debt holders from claiming it was in default because it pledged merchandise as collateral on its bank line of credit. Penney also asked the court for an order declaring that it's not in default.
Penney said that it received a letter from law firm Brown Rudnick LLP indicating it had violated terms of a January 2012 bank agreement.
The amendment also expands the accordion feature of the credit facility to $400 million.
The arrangement of the credit facility was co-led by J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Wells Fargo Capital Finance.


text:
Torrington: New fire chief grateful for backing of officials, public
As I start as fire chief, my promise to the citizens and visitors of Torrington is that the city Fire Department will provide them with the most professional and compassionate service possible. It is my job to lead the personnel of the fire service, and we are to take care of you in your time of need.
To Mayor Ryan J. Bingham and the Board of Safety, thank you for having the confidence in me to lead the Fire Department as we move forward together in providing the best possible emergency services to our citizens.
Read more of this story and more!
7-Day Subscribers have FREE access to everything on rep-am.com and our E-Edition.
CLICK HERE to register and activate your access,.
Not a subscriber?
You can purchase a single-day subscription for only $0.75 to read this and access all of our content and our E-Edition.
CLICK HERE purchase a single day subscription.
Become an electronic subscriber to the Republican-American for only $8 a month. CLICK HERE.
Follow Us
Post a reader commentWe encourage your feedback and dialog.
Please be civil and respectful.
If you're witty, to the point and quotable, your reader comments may also be included on the Around the Towns page of The Sunday Republican.
Readers must be registered and logged in to post comments on the site. Registration is free. Click Here to register.
A Subscription is not required to post comments only a Registration.
Log In
|Register / Forgotten Password?
More stories from Yourpage
- Naugatuck
- Derby
- War preparations in the West
- Waterbury
- Watertown Harvest Cruze proceeds support community projects
- Wolcott Frisbie School took the time to honor veterans
- Canaan Bereaved family grateful for support
- Litchfield Visiting nurse group provides valuable service
- Coming together: Fredericksburg, 1862
- Wolcott Ambulance crew, hospital personnel were the best


text:
Useful Oracle Sun patch download options, including metadata & READMEs
By Gerry Haskins-Oracle on Sep 14, 2011
(Updated May 14, 2013)
Here are some Oracle Sun patch download options which my colleague Don O'Malley and I believe you may find useful:
You can download an Oracle Sun patch README simply by using an URI of the following form:
Just replace the PatchID in the URI above with the PatchID you are interested in.
If you are logged on to MOS, and have a valid support contract associated with your account, you can download patches using an URI of the following form for an individual patch:
XML metadata for a patch is available using a URI of the form:
This XML metadata contains useful information like:
- The MD5 and SHA-1 checksums, see <digest type=...>. Getting MD5 and SHA-1 checksums directly from MOS or this XML metadata file is the most accurate way to get checksum information.
- The latest PatchID in this lineage which obsoletes (supersedes) this patch revision , see <patch_replacements> - in this example 127127-11
- What bug fixes (CRs) are delivered in the Patch - note if <fixes_bugs truncated="yes">, then the list of CRs fixed in truncated, so see the patch README for the full list of CRs
- What access entitlement is needed to download this patch - in this example "OS" (Operating System) which means you need a support contract which covers Solaris in order to download it. Other common access entitlements are "FMW" (Firmware) and "SW" ([other] Software), which means you need a support contract which covers Hardware or other Software respectively. If multiple access entitlements are shown, then a support contract which covers any of them is sufficient to download the patch.
- The Oracle BugDB Bug number reference to this patch which can be used as an alternative way to access it (see example below) - in this example 9615556
- The Oracle BugDB Bug number reference to the README of this patch which can be used as an alternative way to access it (see example below) - in this example 12450076
Note, there are two nearly identical <patch> entries in the XML Metadata file in this example, one for 32-bit and one for 64-bit. This is common and occurs for the vast majority of Oracle Sun patches. Java patches are the main exception to this multiple <patch> entries rule for Oracle Sun patches, as they produce a separate 64-bit patch which will have a separate metadata file. Where multiple <patch> entries exist in a metadata file, they always refer to one and the same patch, so either metadata entry can be parsed. So while the "aru" <request id> references in the URIs differ for each in addition to <platform>, it's the identical patch which is downloaded in each case.
It's also possible to access a nice landing page using the Oracle BugDB Bug number reference to a patch (taken from the XML Metadata file above) to construct a URI of the form:
The "View Digest" button on the landing page shows the MD4 and SHA-1 Checksums for the patch. The landing page also facilitates viewing of the README and download of the patch.
The "HTML version" of the patch README can be accessed two ways:
https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download?type=readme&bugfix_name=120068-02 (using the PatchID) or
https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download?type=readme&aru=12450076 (using the Oracle BugDB Bug number reference to the README taken from the XML Metadata file above)
Both of the above URIs resolve to the same patch README. The "HTML version" of the README contains a download link for the patch at the top of the page. It also provides links to two key resources for Oracle Sun patching information:
It's also possible to directly access the MOS Flash-based download page using a URI of the form:
Since patchsets are named a little differently, here's a table showing the relevant URIs for key patchsets:
|Patchset Name
|Landing Page
|XML Metadata
|Checksums (subset of XML Metadata)
|Recommended OS Patchset for Solaris 10 SPARC
|Landing Page
|XML Metadata
Click "View Digest" on Landing Page or extract from XML Metadata
|Recommended OS Patchset for Solaris 10 x86
|Landing Page
|XML Metadata
Click "View Digest" on Landing Page or extract from XML Metadata
|Critical Patch Update (CPU) Patchset for Solaris 10 SPARC, Apr 2013
|Landing Page
|XML Metadata
|Critical Patch Update (CPU) Patchset for Solaris 10 x86, Apr 2013
|Landing Page
|XML Metadata
|Solaris 10 1/13 (Update 11) SPARC Patchset
|Landing Page
See Landing Page
|XML Metadata
|Solaris 10 1/13 (Update 10) x86 Patchset
|Landing Page
|See Landing Page
|XML Metadata
Sun Alerts - Knowledge article with summary of, and links to, all published Sun Alerts alerting customers to known Security (through the link to the "Critical Patch Update (CPU) and Security Alerts" page), Availability and Data Corruption issues
patchdiag.xref - metadata file listing latest available revision of all Oracle Sun 6-2 digit patches
withdrawn_patch_report - list of all Oracle Sun patches withdrawn from release in the last 12 months
weekly_patch_report - list of all Oracle Sun patches released in the last week
You can be proactively notified daily of Sun Alert issues (and other knowledge articles) by configuring the "Hot Topics" option in My Oracle Support:
1. Go to url https://support.oracle.com/CSP/ui/flash.html
2. Sign in
3. Select the tab "More..." --> Settings
4. Select "Hot Topics E-Mail" on the left
5. Update the Hot Topics Settings
1. Toggle the E-Mail to 'On'
2. Ensure set "Send Every 1 Days"
3. Select desired format (text or HTML)
4. Set the item limit to some number larger than 5 (suggest 25)
5. Set Service Request to "None"
6. leave "Product Bugs Marked as Favorites" deselected
6. Add the needed Sun Alert Filter(s) ** Note: To receive all Sun Alerts, use the following filter **
7. Select "Add..." (new window will pop up)
1. Add the Product "Solaris SPARC Operating System"
2. Add the Platform "GENERIC (All Platforms)"
3. Check the "Knowledge Articles" box
4. Check the "Alerts" box
5. Select "OK" (selection window closes)
8. Select "Save"
1. You should be able to see your Hot Topics filter you just set up.
9. Log out of MOS
Finally, for details on how to script access to resources such as the URIs listed above, check out:
I'd like to thank my colleague, Don O'Malley, for researching much of the above.
I hope you find this helpful.
Best Wishes,


text:
SNOWMASS VILLAGE - The Snowmass Village Town Council on Monday didn't take a vote on a funding request from those working on a history book of the town.
Councilman Fred Kucker thought it would be more appropriate for the contribution to come out of the town's marketing fund and suggested that "The Story of Snowmass" present its request to the marketing and group sales board. Mayor Bill Boineau said he wanted to further discuss the amount of the grant as well. The group was requesting $30,000.
The officials gave owners of a Rodeo Place home an extra year to sell their rental condo in Basalt. New owners of town housing are required to sell any other residential property that they own in the Roaring Fork Drainage within six months of closing.
Council also extended the Snowmass Club's vesting rights for employee housing by five years, and also approved amendments to the 2012 budget.


text:
ALAMEDA -- The Raiders have found their quarterback, reaching an agreement Friday to acquire Houston's Matt Schaub for a late-round draft pick.
ESPN first reported the trade.
Schaub, 32, is a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback who struggled for the Texans last season, losing his job to Case Keenum. Houston, which signed free-agent quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick Thursday, had no intention of retaining Schaub, who carries a $10 million salary in 2014.
Last season for the Texans, Schaub had 10 touchdown passes and 14 interceptions. He has 130 touchdown passes and 84 interceptions for his career, which includes four seasons of passing for more than 4,000 yards.
General manager Reggie McKenzie and coach Dennis Allen were on record as saying following the season that the Raiders quarterback of the future wasn't necessarily on the 2013 roster.
Schaub was the veteran quarterback targeted by McKenzie and Allen in a dwindling market that included Philadelphia's Michael Vick and Mark Sanchez of the New York Jets.
Current quarterbacks on the roster include Terrelle Pryor, Matt McGloin and Trent Edwards. The Raiders are expected to consider dealing Pryor, possibly to acquire a late-round draft pick which they would lose in the Schaub deal.
The Raiders are also expected to add a quarterback in the draft, with Allen going to the pro day workouts of Louisville's Teddy Bridgewater, Central Florida's Blake Bortles and Fresno State's Derek Carr.
McKenzie was at the pro day of San Jose State's David Fales Wednesday, saying at the time he had a ``pretty good idea'' who the Raiders starting quarterback would be in the 2014 season opener.


text:
From ArachneWiki
A library is a collection of inserts that were all created together, by a particular sequencing method, in a particular laboratory. Each insert in a library contains one or more reads; if it contains multiple ones, the reads are paired-production reads. Important library statistics include number of inserts and average insert size (mean and standard deviation).
The inserts in a library are all of a particular type, and the insert size depends on that type. Plasmid inserts are typically around 4 kbp in length, although there exists a "long plasmid" type that averags 10 kbp. Fosmid inserts average 40kbp, while BAC end inserts are around 100kbp. (These sizes are hard-wired into ComputeLibraryClusters in the form of the default value of INSERT_SIZES.) It is important to realize that these are typical numbers, not guarantees: a library's average insert size may vary widely, and the standard deviation may be high. A typical full-coverage assembly project includes around 4x plasmid coverage, 2x fosmid coverage, and 1x BAC coverage, for a total of 7x.
In Arachne
In Arachne input, library information is found in the XML ancillary files. Each read is tagged with a library_id or seq_lib_id indicating the name of the library it comes from. Output files that provide library data include assembly.ps.


text:
SNOWMASS VILLAGE --Snowmass Village will join in a countywide effort to improve cellular and broadband service in the area.
The Aspen Skiing Co., Pitkin County, Snowmass Village, Roaring Fork Transportation Authority and U.S. Forest Service have formed a coalition to identify coverage holes in the upper Roaring Fork Valley and to find a contractor to build towers in sites ideal for expanding coverage. The town joined after a presentation by the other members at the Jan. 7 council meeting.
Pitkin County began a study of coverage holes this fall, and the Roaring Fork Broadband Coalition has sent those findings to infrastructure providers. It expects to receive proposals from them within in a week.
Kevin Ward, of Aspen Strategy Center, the consultant on the project, said providers will build the needed infrastructure for free because they receive their profits from cellphone and wireless companies paying rent to use their towers. Therefore, the providers need a desirable area for companies to rent, so the county or Skico on their own wouldn't be as marketable.
"So what were trying to do is present one face that the vendors can come to," he added in explanation of the reason for a coalition. "They're going to send the money were going to say yes you can build here. ... What we need to do is keep presenting that united front."
The builders also manage the towers once they're completed, Ward said.
Assistant County Manager Phylis Mattice said the county hopes to come up with a cell tower master plan that would also be encouraging to potential vendors. The county doesn't benefit financially from the expansion, Mattice said.
"What we want is broadband and cell coverage in the county," Mattice said. "And then as a group we'll look at those pieces."
The Town Council expressed a desire to work with the coalition. Mayor Bill Boineau pointed out that the lack of coverage is a common complaint in the Village, especially from visitors and part-time residents. The town's comprehensive plan also includes goals to improve cellular and wireless coverage, while "mitigating visual impacts and impacts to environmentally sensitive areas."
Zoning will be an important part of the process, Mattice said. Pitkin County already has some sites available for broadband expansion, and the coalition will continue to identify more.
Paul Major, Skico director of information systems, said the coalition wants to make it possible for building to start "as soon as the snow melts."


text:
Saturday, Jan. 12, 2013
APPLING, Ga. (WRDW) -- They're called "Friends of Mistletoe State Park." They've come up with a way people can still enjoy the lake and get their boat out on the water despite the drought.
"I've got nothing to do with it, but they not going to let it happen," said Cecil Bullard.
Bullard is talking about how the Army Corps of Engineers will never let Clarks Hill lake dry up.
Bullard woke up early Saturday morning to begin work on the boat ramp extension so visitors can have fun on a sunny day. However, he say's the Corps of Engineers worries about the lake for reasons other than fishing and boat rides.
"Recreation is a very low priority for the Corps. It's nothing to do with them, it just the way the lake was designed ... Flood control and keeping the flow in the Savannah River," Bullard said.
And while Bullard's main goal is to keep the lake fun and accessible to everyone, he knows the lake's main job is to continue generating power.
The small group of volunteers first waited for the cement truck to arrive, then waited on the cement to dry and lastly began a raking process.
The lake at full pool is 330 feet sea level, which means it's current level of 316 feet makes it nearly 15 feet low.
That's why Bullard got to work.
"We needed a ramp that would be accessible to where people could put their boats in at that elevation for the lake," he said.
Sheryl Silva is the president of "Friends of Mistletoe State Park." Her group put a lot of time into getting the ramp but she says donations are what made the project possible.
"Petsch Respiratory and Robertson Paving. Those are some of the main ones that have been instrumental in getting this project up and going," Silva said.
Bullard says he gives his time to the park because he wants to see it grow in popularity within the community. Bullard added, while the Corps manages the lake levels, only a higher power can get it to full pool.
"The Lord puts the water in it," he said.