In July, BizSense covered Steve Haas, a staple at the local farmers markets who forages for wild mushrooms in the woods of Central Virginia. Last time we chatted, Haas was working on a salad dressing product to get on grocers shelves.
"Now that the farmers markets are done with, we're going to focus on getting the dressings to the grocery stores," Haas said.
In November, Haas went to Maui to pick mushrooms, and he's ginning up plans to lead foraging forays on the Hawaiian island for tourists. He's also in discussions with the Cooking Channel to shoot a pilot that follows him on mushroom forays.
In September, we talked to Michael Hild, the head of the Midlothian-based Live Well Financial who spends almost every second of his free time running his other business: Anderson's Neck Oyster Company, based in King and Queen County.
Hild was trying to get the myriad of permits required to sell oysters for human consumption. He was also trying to get permission from various regulators to create floating oyster nurseries called "oysterplexes" crucial to scaling up his business.
Today, Hild's oysters are in restaurants all over town, including the Roosevelt, the Magpie, Mezzanine, 525 at the Berry Burke and Bistro Bobette. And, in December, Hild received approval from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to start building his floating nursery, although he still has a few more hoops to jump through.
Also in September, BizSense told you about Jason Lefton and his laser-etching business, Big Secret, which he had just moved to a storefront in Jackson Ward. Along with the bigger space, Lefton had ordered a much larger laser-engraving tool.
Lefton had his $50,000 laser tool delivered Nov. 30, and business has been blowing up like the Death Star at the end of Return of the Jedi.
"We're booked through January 15," he said. "We've got the holiday rush and some things we are working on for the ad agencies and art directors around town. It's been great."
Lefton said he is still working out the kinks with the new laser – it uses different software than his other, smaller laser – but overall, he's thrilled with the results.
In July, we got to know Valerie Paul, an Ashland native and dog trainer who had just signed a lease on a building off of West Broad Street for her business, Impawsible Pups.
Paul runs her training and dogsitting service out of the location, and business is growing about as fast as she had anticipated. She ran a Living Social deal but is trying to figure out how to turn coupon users into repeat customers.
"Obviously we'd like to be full every night, right from the get-go," she said. "But we are about where I expected to be. I think if we continue to grow at this pace we'll be where we need to be in six months."
It's been about six months since former VCU field hockey coach Kelly McQuade hung up her whistle and launched ZingerFit, a personal training business aimed at women in the Tuckahoe Shopping Center off of Ridge Road in the West End.
She started the business in November out of another gym with two clients, and by the time she opened her location it had grown to 35.
McQuade said the business continues to grow. She now has more than 60 clients, mostly women from the neighborhood.
"I could always use an extra client or two," she said. "But I'm happy with how it's grown. I made a personal commitment that I wasn't going to give myself a raise until I've saved up three months' rent."
2012年12月27日 星期四
2012年12月26日 星期三
The year of the turbine
Plymouth got a little more organized in 2012; it erected its first industrial wind turbine and fielded more requests for solar fields. Plans to build a retail center behind Job Lot in West Plymouth resurfaced, and sand and gravel operations continued.
It was also the year of splitting parcels in half to build one more house, medical office buildings, townhouses and illegal additions.
Plans for a downtown parking garage behind Memorial Hall inched forward. And 2012 closed out with a bang when the owner of Waverly Oaks Golf Club off Long Pond Road filed plans for a subdivision on the course, effectively ending any speculation the property would still be used someday as a movie studio site.
Balboni LLC at Camelot Park erected Plymouth’s first industrial-sized wind turbine. It’s 364 feet high but not close to any residences, so it appeared without much fanfare (pun intended). A small wind turbine was erected at 185 Center Hill Road, but that wasn’t large enough to generate much hot air.
Meanwhile, all but one appeal of Future Wind Generations’ four approved turbines for 810 Head of the Bay Road were settled this year. Associated Wind Developers’ approved wind turbine at 143 Hedges Pond Road is also under appeal and yet to be constructed. Colony Place LLC’s proposal for a wind turbine generated opposition, but its approval was not appealed, probably because the company owns Colony Place and all the buildings therein.
The push back has been hefty, not just from abutters but from legislators like Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, and Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth, who say industrial-sized wind turbines just don’t belong in residential areas. A contradictory state study both acknowledged possible health impacts from these behemoths and denied them. Then a Maine study came right out and said wind turbines can be a health hazard because they can impact sleep.
So, some developers tried a different tack this year, pushing for solar instead. It came as some surprise to residents when they learned that solar farms are allowed uses that don’t require special permits or approvals beyond a sign off on site-plan review. In March, Renewable Energy Development Partners LLC announced plans to construct a three-megawatt solar field on a 17-acre Herring Pond Road parcel. Site plan review on the project was approved and it was given the green light. Then, in May, the Carreau Family Trust, which operates the Ellis Haven Campground, announced its plans for a one-half megawatt solar field off South Meadow Road. The Planning Board voted unanimously to approve the site plan for the project. By August, another solar developer had stepped forward. This time it was Sage Stone proposing a 37-acre solar field off Old Sandwich Road. Planning Board members bemoaned the loss of woodlands to these uses, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.
In other parts of town, 2012 was ushered in with the rise of the medical office building, as these projects sprung up in the Industrial Park next to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, on the Jordan Hospital property and, most recently, at Cordage Park. These plans sounded a more positive note from the town’s planners as the buildings are reasonably attractive and will boost the local economy with additional taxes, require few town services and, possibly, provide some jobs.
Scattered among these projects were several proposals to split a property in half in order to build another home, as Manomet homeowners tried to maximize their land.
And Howland Street weighed in with yet another proposal for townhouses – this time for 22 units in three buildings on land owned by the Stasinos Family Trust, located across from Polar Cat LLC’s property slated to become an 11-unit apartment building. The plans are conceptual at the moment, but Polar Cat’s have been approved.
It was also the year of splitting parcels in half to build one more house, medical office buildings, townhouses and illegal additions.
Plans for a downtown parking garage behind Memorial Hall inched forward. And 2012 closed out with a bang when the owner of Waverly Oaks Golf Club off Long Pond Road filed plans for a subdivision on the course, effectively ending any speculation the property would still be used someday as a movie studio site.
Balboni LLC at Camelot Park erected Plymouth’s first industrial-sized wind turbine. It’s 364 feet high but not close to any residences, so it appeared without much fanfare (pun intended). A small wind turbine was erected at 185 Center Hill Road, but that wasn’t large enough to generate much hot air.
Meanwhile, all but one appeal of Future Wind Generations’ four approved turbines for 810 Head of the Bay Road were settled this year. Associated Wind Developers’ approved wind turbine at 143 Hedges Pond Road is also under appeal and yet to be constructed. Colony Place LLC’s proposal for a wind turbine generated opposition, but its approval was not appealed, probably because the company owns Colony Place and all the buildings therein.
The push back has been hefty, not just from abutters but from legislators like Senate President Therese Murray, D-Plymouth, and Rep. Vinny deMacedo, R-Plymouth, who say industrial-sized wind turbines just don’t belong in residential areas. A contradictory state study both acknowledged possible health impacts from these behemoths and denied them. Then a Maine study came right out and said wind turbines can be a health hazard because they can impact sleep.
So, some developers tried a different tack this year, pushing for solar instead. It came as some surprise to residents when they learned that solar farms are allowed uses that don’t require special permits or approvals beyond a sign off on site-plan review. In March, Renewable Energy Development Partners LLC announced plans to construct a three-megawatt solar field on a 17-acre Herring Pond Road parcel. Site plan review on the project was approved and it was given the green light. Then, in May, the Carreau Family Trust, which operates the Ellis Haven Campground, announced its plans for a one-half megawatt solar field off South Meadow Road. The Planning Board voted unanimously to approve the site plan for the project. By August, another solar developer had stepped forward. This time it was Sage Stone proposing a 37-acre solar field off Old Sandwich Road. Planning Board members bemoaned the loss of woodlands to these uses, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.
In other parts of town, 2012 was ushered in with the rise of the medical office building, as these projects sprung up in the Industrial Park next to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, on the Jordan Hospital property and, most recently, at Cordage Park. These plans sounded a more positive note from the town’s planners as the buildings are reasonably attractive and will boost the local economy with additional taxes, require few town services and, possibly, provide some jobs.
Scattered among these projects were several proposals to split a property in half in order to build another home, as Manomet homeowners tried to maximize their land.
And Howland Street weighed in with yet another proposal for townhouses – this time for 22 units in three buildings on land owned by the Stasinos Family Trust, located across from Polar Cat LLC’s property slated to become an 11-unit apartment building. The plans are conceptual at the moment, but Polar Cat’s have been approved.
2012年12月24日 星期一
Grief shared is grief lessened
Something beautiful sprouted from tragedy here in Humboldt, and maybe that’s important to remember this holiday season as our nation reels from the horror of Newtown, Conn. Grief is the immediate focus. But eventually there’s remembrance without such crippling, unrelenting sorrow.
I say this because I met a pair of grieving Iowa mothers who haven’t let the heartbreak of their children’s deaths crush them — in part because they found each other and have clung to each other in their weakest moments.
Renae Dreyer and Candy Robinson probably wouldn’t have become such inseparable business partners and friends if not for the death of Dreyer’s 16-year-old daughter, Brooke, on Aug. 17, 2008, and the death of Robinson’s son, Jordan, also 16, less than a month later on Sept. 7, 2008.
Their children weren’t brutally murdered; these moms can’t imagine their grief and anger compounded by such malicious violence.
But Brooke’s and Jordan’s deaths were similar in that they were sudden. She was killed in a car accident in Humboldt while driving her Pontiac Bonneville.
He collapsed on the lawn of his sister’s home in Spirit Lake and never regained consciousness; autopsy results months later confirmed a rare, deadly infection.
After the death of a young child you end up “searching for your purpose in life,” Dreyer said. “You’re more intuitive to your surroundings — what’s important, what’s not, what your inner voice is saying.” Something as simple as a box of brownie mix can trigger what had been happy memories, and the tears flow.
People say, “Well, you have two other children,” as well-intended consolation, which only infuriates the grieving parents.
Yet despite their similar circumstances in a town of fewer than 5,000 people, Dreyer and Robinson had never met, other than to pass each other in the grocery store aisle.
Dreyer’s husband runs the tire store in town. Robinson owns a title company. Their two children were buried side by side in the local cemetery. But Dreyer was skeptical when a mutual friend suggested that she and Robinson commiserate in neighborly self-therapy.
“Why do we both want to sit around and be pissed off about what happened?” Dreyer wondered. No, these moms are not shrinking violets. They’re spirited women who romp through a full range of emotions. They cry on a daily basis, but also laugh.
Together they combine their hard-won empathy with a refreshing, off-color irreverence as the shopkeepers of Humboldt Engraving & Gifts, a laser-engraving service that crafts a steady stream of memorial items to help remember the dead.
They engrave granite, wood, leather, whatever material — for happy occasions as well as sad. They gabbed and bonded over a couple of beers when they first met and by December 2010 had opened their shop that they refer to as “the biz.”
Robinson talked about how she used to teeter on the verge of an emotional breakdown in a bathroom stall, madly texting Dreyer: “I can’t breathe.”
They burden each other to help bear the grief. Dreyer pointed to a pink ornament that dangled from the small Christmas tree in the middle of the store.
“That’s my daughter’s signature,” she said. The perky cursive handwriting, complete with a doodled heart, was lifted from the last Mother’s Day card that Dreyer received from her daughter. Another red ornament bore Jordan’s signature from a school paper written three days before his death.
I say this because I met a pair of grieving Iowa mothers who haven’t let the heartbreak of their children’s deaths crush them — in part because they found each other and have clung to each other in their weakest moments.
Renae Dreyer and Candy Robinson probably wouldn’t have become such inseparable business partners and friends if not for the death of Dreyer’s 16-year-old daughter, Brooke, on Aug. 17, 2008, and the death of Robinson’s son, Jordan, also 16, less than a month later on Sept. 7, 2008.
Their children weren’t brutally murdered; these moms can’t imagine their grief and anger compounded by such malicious violence.
But Brooke’s and Jordan’s deaths were similar in that they were sudden. She was killed in a car accident in Humboldt while driving her Pontiac Bonneville.
He collapsed on the lawn of his sister’s home in Spirit Lake and never regained consciousness; autopsy results months later confirmed a rare, deadly infection.
After the death of a young child you end up “searching for your purpose in life,” Dreyer said. “You’re more intuitive to your surroundings — what’s important, what’s not, what your inner voice is saying.” Something as simple as a box of brownie mix can trigger what had been happy memories, and the tears flow.
People say, “Well, you have two other children,” as well-intended consolation, which only infuriates the grieving parents.
Yet despite their similar circumstances in a town of fewer than 5,000 people, Dreyer and Robinson had never met, other than to pass each other in the grocery store aisle.
Dreyer’s husband runs the tire store in town. Robinson owns a title company. Their two children were buried side by side in the local cemetery. But Dreyer was skeptical when a mutual friend suggested that she and Robinson commiserate in neighborly self-therapy.
“Why do we both want to sit around and be pissed off about what happened?” Dreyer wondered. No, these moms are not shrinking violets. They’re spirited women who romp through a full range of emotions. They cry on a daily basis, but also laugh.
Together they combine their hard-won empathy with a refreshing, off-color irreverence as the shopkeepers of Humboldt Engraving & Gifts, a laser-engraving service that crafts a steady stream of memorial items to help remember the dead.
They engrave granite, wood, leather, whatever material — for happy occasions as well as sad. They gabbed and bonded over a couple of beers when they first met and by December 2010 had opened their shop that they refer to as “the biz.”
Robinson talked about how she used to teeter on the verge of an emotional breakdown in a bathroom stall, madly texting Dreyer: “I can’t breathe.”
They burden each other to help bear the grief. Dreyer pointed to a pink ornament that dangled from the small Christmas tree in the middle of the store.
“That’s my daughter’s signature,” she said. The perky cursive handwriting, complete with a doodled heart, was lifted from the last Mother’s Day card that Dreyer received from her daughter. Another red ornament bore Jordan’s signature from a school paper written three days before his death.
2012年12月19日 星期三
Rosati-Kain High School girls help “keep out the rain”
Can you imagine getting rained on while in class? This was a daily occurrence for children at Bar-Ogwal school in Nigeria, Africa.
In order to help solve this problem, Rosati-Kain High School, led by the Overseas Mission Club, held a fundraiser. The project netted more than $1,500 to send to the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) to purchase windows for Bar-Ogwal.
The Overseas Mission Club, or OSM, includes about 25 student members. Each fall, the girls review a list of needs from SSND in Africa and choose one on which to focus. The girls then create a theme for their fundraiser and encourage school-wide participation.
“The club’s purpose is to increase knowledge and awareness of needs outside the school, particularly with the financially poor, and raise funds to empower development,” said Dona Zeidler, R-K religion teacher and the club’s faculty advisor.
This year, Bar-Ogwal primary school had a great need for windows. Any surplus funds sent to Bar-Ogwal will address the school’s need for toilets, desks, text books and other essential items.
The OSM Club spent two weeks in November selling clothing that marketed this year’s theme “Buy a Pane, Keep out the Rain.”
The club, founded in 2003, challenges the R-K community with a new fundraising effort each year for the SSND’s schools in Africa.
One past project, “Bunks for Beauties,” raised $3,075 to build a dorm for school girls who were previously sleeping in a building intended for livestock.
The “Fences for Friends” project raised $3,277 to build a fence to prevent goats from eating the clean laundry at a girls' high school.
In yet another year, the “Help a Sister Out” project provided science lab equipment necessary for girls to pass their national exam.
Club President Jasmin Robles ’13 has been a member of the OSM Club since her freshman year.
“This year’s project is important to me because we are benefiting our sister schools in Africa and thinking about the students there that have to huddle in a corner in a storm,” Robles said. “The fact that we could put windows in helped their classroom environment. This is something we take for granted.”
The rule for reporting to work after a school closing was changed to match other agreements: Come to work as soon as possible; if delayed, make up the hours, take vacation, or take unpaid hours.
School-paid health insurance was increased to keep take-home pay intact. A floating holiday was added and the emergency leave policy was changed. Language authorizing lump sum payments was removed.
Custodial, maintenance and laundry employees earn from $14.51 to $21.89 per hour the first year and from $15.69 to $24.08 the fifth year, depending on the position.
Wage rates were adjusted: A step freeze in Year 1, one step granted in Year 2, and increases in the top step were approved. A shift premium of $.55 per hour applies for shifts beginning after noon. A janitor called back after his shift ends is paid double time for at least two hours of work.
An election equipment cost-sharing joint powers agreement with Anoka County was approved. Some grant money is available to help pay the annual fee.
The board also approved an agreement for providing mental health treatment services at a school site, and the student sex non-discrimination policy.
In order to help solve this problem, Rosati-Kain High School, led by the Overseas Mission Club, held a fundraiser. The project netted more than $1,500 to send to the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND) to purchase windows for Bar-Ogwal.
The Overseas Mission Club, or OSM, includes about 25 student members. Each fall, the girls review a list of needs from SSND in Africa and choose one on which to focus. The girls then create a theme for their fundraiser and encourage school-wide participation.
“The club’s purpose is to increase knowledge and awareness of needs outside the school, particularly with the financially poor, and raise funds to empower development,” said Dona Zeidler, R-K religion teacher and the club’s faculty advisor.
This year, Bar-Ogwal primary school had a great need for windows. Any surplus funds sent to Bar-Ogwal will address the school’s need for toilets, desks, text books and other essential items.
The OSM Club spent two weeks in November selling clothing that marketed this year’s theme “Buy a Pane, Keep out the Rain.”
The club, founded in 2003, challenges the R-K community with a new fundraising effort each year for the SSND’s schools in Africa.
One past project, “Bunks for Beauties,” raised $3,075 to build a dorm for school girls who were previously sleeping in a building intended for livestock.
The “Fences for Friends” project raised $3,277 to build a fence to prevent goats from eating the clean laundry at a girls' high school.
In yet another year, the “Help a Sister Out” project provided science lab equipment necessary for girls to pass their national exam.
Club President Jasmin Robles ’13 has been a member of the OSM Club since her freshman year.
“This year’s project is important to me because we are benefiting our sister schools in Africa and thinking about the students there that have to huddle in a corner in a storm,” Robles said. “The fact that we could put windows in helped their classroom environment. This is something we take for granted.”
The rule for reporting to work after a school closing was changed to match other agreements: Come to work as soon as possible; if delayed, make up the hours, take vacation, or take unpaid hours.
School-paid health insurance was increased to keep take-home pay intact. A floating holiday was added and the emergency leave policy was changed. Language authorizing lump sum payments was removed.
Custodial, maintenance and laundry employees earn from $14.51 to $21.89 per hour the first year and from $15.69 to $24.08 the fifth year, depending on the position.
Wage rates were adjusted: A step freeze in Year 1, one step granted in Year 2, and increases in the top step were approved. A shift premium of $.55 per hour applies for shifts beginning after noon. A janitor called back after his shift ends is paid double time for at least two hours of work.
An election equipment cost-sharing joint powers agreement with Anoka County was approved. Some grant money is available to help pay the annual fee.
The board also approved an agreement for providing mental health treatment services at a school site, and the student sex non-discrimination policy.
2012年12月18日 星期二
Close up - first view of Siemens 4MW turbine
The machine represents a second upgrade of the initial 3.6MW geared SWT-3.6-107 platform introduced in 2004 and the current 3.6MW SWT-3.6-120 with enlarged rotor of 2009. Around 500 units of these two offshore models have been installed so far, with Siemens reporting a 1200-turbine order backlog.
The prototype has initially been fitted with a 120-metre diameter rotor, which is offered on the standard SWT-3.6-120. In early 2013 it will be refitted with an in-house developed 63-metre B63 blades to give the turbine a 130-metre rotor diameter.
The nacelle and tower structures are essentially upgraded 3.6MW variants, and the B63 blades are manufactured using in-house IntegralBlade technology eliminating shell bonding joints. Siemens retained the proven high-speed drivetrain concept but incorporates a new higher rated gearbox and introduced an optimised induction generator cooling system.
A 302W/m2 specific power rating represents one of the lowest values for current IEC class I offshore products while the specifications make the turbine potentially well suited for medium and high-wind speed onshore sites too. Although, Siemens chief technology officer Henrik Stiesdal said that such additional onshore market appetite for a machine of this size is hard to predict.
After extensive testing the SWT-4.0-130 will go on sale in spring 2013, with some pilot projects planned for onshore application and serial production start in 2015. One large offshore project where the new turbine model might be employed first is the Gemini 600MW project off the Dutch coast.
A key question for many in the wind industry is why Siemens decided for a new 4MW geared turbine, while having developed the more powerful 6MW direct drive platform. In response, Stiesdal admitted that bigger turbines offer obvious benefits especially in terms of saving on foundations and infrastructure costs. But he added "There are many old offshore permits to consider as well and the offshore wind industry suffers from a long planning horizon, posing unfortunate restrictions on turbine specifications and dimensions to be employed. Another practical parallel consideration was our 3.6MW turbine still had considerable structural capacity left and an evaluation showed that upgrading would involve rather moderate design and overall effort."
The new B63 Siemens blade forms part of a new-generation aero-elastically tailored slender blades and were a key enabler in combining improved performance with reduced turbine loading. A third and final reason for the 4MW turbine, Stiesdal stressed, is that 6MW turbine development should not be rushed. He added that the maximum ramp up rate is limited by parallel requirements for demonstration, intermediate product upgrades and optimising.
Speaking about the SWT-4.0-130's technology features, Stiesdal said that each time a new product is developed, a common idea in engineer’s minds is that all further possibilities have been exhausted already. He added: "Such perceptions are based upon extrapolation of current knowledge mirrored towards the future but most-often prove mistaken because some possible future gains are simply unknown.
"Unexpected and in reality non-predictable innovation potential therefore continues to surprise us. For example when we developed the B52 blade for the SWT-3.6-107 back in 2003 it fully stretched our technological capabilities. Today’s B63 blade weighs less despite being 11 metres longer and remarkably without having to use carbon. Also B75 blade mass is below the value we predicted a decade ago when it would have to be made in carbon."
He further explained that the upgrade follows familiar company lines like conducted with previous 1MW => 1.3MW and 2MW => 2.3MW platform upgrades. "We have built substantial record in upgrading machines and the first rule is always to change as little as possible, for fast time to market and limiting risks of failures and reduced platform reliability."
In a final remark, Stiesdal said: "The SWT-4.0-130 offers around 13% yield increase compared to the SWT-3.6-120 at typical 9-10m/s mean wind speed sites offering faster return on investment and superior CoE."
The prototype has initially been fitted with a 120-metre diameter rotor, which is offered on the standard SWT-3.6-120. In early 2013 it will be refitted with an in-house developed 63-metre B63 blades to give the turbine a 130-metre rotor diameter.
The nacelle and tower structures are essentially upgraded 3.6MW variants, and the B63 blades are manufactured using in-house IntegralBlade technology eliminating shell bonding joints. Siemens retained the proven high-speed drivetrain concept but incorporates a new higher rated gearbox and introduced an optimised induction generator cooling system.
A 302W/m2 specific power rating represents one of the lowest values for current IEC class I offshore products while the specifications make the turbine potentially well suited for medium and high-wind speed onshore sites too. Although, Siemens chief technology officer Henrik Stiesdal said that such additional onshore market appetite for a machine of this size is hard to predict.
After extensive testing the SWT-4.0-130 will go on sale in spring 2013, with some pilot projects planned for onshore application and serial production start in 2015. One large offshore project where the new turbine model might be employed first is the Gemini 600MW project off the Dutch coast.
A key question for many in the wind industry is why Siemens decided for a new 4MW geared turbine, while having developed the more powerful 6MW direct drive platform. In response, Stiesdal admitted that bigger turbines offer obvious benefits especially in terms of saving on foundations and infrastructure costs. But he added "There are many old offshore permits to consider as well and the offshore wind industry suffers from a long planning horizon, posing unfortunate restrictions on turbine specifications and dimensions to be employed. Another practical parallel consideration was our 3.6MW turbine still had considerable structural capacity left and an evaluation showed that upgrading would involve rather moderate design and overall effort."
The new B63 Siemens blade forms part of a new-generation aero-elastically tailored slender blades and were a key enabler in combining improved performance with reduced turbine loading. A third and final reason for the 4MW turbine, Stiesdal stressed, is that 6MW turbine development should not be rushed. He added that the maximum ramp up rate is limited by parallel requirements for demonstration, intermediate product upgrades and optimising.
Speaking about the SWT-4.0-130's technology features, Stiesdal said that each time a new product is developed, a common idea in engineer’s minds is that all further possibilities have been exhausted already. He added: "Such perceptions are based upon extrapolation of current knowledge mirrored towards the future but most-often prove mistaken because some possible future gains are simply unknown.
"Unexpected and in reality non-predictable innovation potential therefore continues to surprise us. For example when we developed the B52 blade for the SWT-3.6-107 back in 2003 it fully stretched our technological capabilities. Today’s B63 blade weighs less despite being 11 metres longer and remarkably without having to use carbon. Also B75 blade mass is below the value we predicted a decade ago when it would have to be made in carbon."
He further explained that the upgrade follows familiar company lines like conducted with previous 1MW => 1.3MW and 2MW => 2.3MW platform upgrades. "We have built substantial record in upgrading machines and the first rule is always to change as little as possible, for fast time to market and limiting risks of failures and reduced platform reliability."
In a final remark, Stiesdal said: "The SWT-4.0-130 offers around 13% yield increase compared to the SWT-3.6-120 at typical 9-10m/s mean wind speed sites offering faster return on investment and superior CoE."
2012年12月17日 星期一
MTA2013 Supports Singapore's Position as Asian Hub
Asia's aviation industry has witnessed strong growth in recent years, and is predicted to progress even more in the future. The opening of the Rolls Royce facility in Singapore earlier in February this year is testament to the growing confidence manufacturing veterans have in Asia's capabilities to manufacturing high-quality parts. With the delivery of the first Singapore-made Trent aero engine for Airbus A380 on 28 November 2012, it further seals Singapore's reputation as Asia's Aviation Hub.
In tandem with this industry trend, MTA2013, returning to the exhibition halls at Singapore Expo from 9 to 12 April next year, is geared to impress industry visitors by unveiling of a specialised group of companies housed within the Capabilities Hub.
The Capabilities Hub will showcase a strong cohort of enterprises that serve the precision engineering industry. These companies will demonstrate their aptitudes in the manufacture of high-quality, advanced solutions - all dedicated to meet the emergent needs of Asia's Aerospace, Complex Equipment, Medical Technology and Oil & Gas sectors.
They include A & One Precision Engineering, ACP Metal Finishing, Beyonics Technology, CEI Contract Manufacturing, Frontken, Fujicon Engineering, Hup Fatt Brothers Engineering, Index Precision Industries, JEP Precision Engineering, JCS-Vanetec, Meiban Group, Microcast, NanoTechnology Manufacturing, Onn Wah Precision Machining Racer Technology, ST Kinetics Integrated Engineering, SolidMicron Technologies Tru-Marine, Trek 2000 International, Vigor Precision Engineering and Wah Son Engineering.
A & One, founded in 1992, has established itself as the premier service provider in the precision machinery industry. The company currently serves customers specialising in Data Storage, Semiconductor, Equipment Manufacturing, Medical Technology, Aerospace, Oil and Gas and Telecommunication Industries.
Mr. Leong Weng Kuan, Corporate General Manager and Sales Director of A & One Precision Engineering states, "Singapore's manufacturing economy is geared towards high value-added, low volume and high mix products. The setting up of the Capabilities Hub provides a platform for local companies to showcase the four high-end sectors Singapore is focusing on to the rest of the international brands present at the exhibition."
Also serving the aerospace sector, Onn Wah Precision Machining, is an AS9100 certified precision machining company. The company deals in complex medium-size components in a high-mix, low volume environment, and serves a diverse range of sectors including the Aerospace, Semiconductor, Oil & Gas, Biomedical and Optics. Company's Managing Director Mr. Lam Keng Yew believes that companies need to be niche to be able to compete in the current manufacturing environment.
"Singapore's manufacturing landscape has changed drastically. Due to the higher cost and labour constraints, we can only focus on manufacturing high value components which are either mission-critical, of high complexity or with high IP content. This is in line with the aerospace industry, which not only requires higher complexity parts, but also a complete system to ensure full compliances to defined processes with a traceable documentation," states Mr. Lam.
"Having spent the last few years developing ways to produce complex parts consistently with automated documentation flow that fulfil the aerospace requirements, Onn Wah is well prepared to provide such machining capabilities, and we're glad that MTA2013's Capabilities Hub provides a platform for us to showcase what we can offer."
Adding to MTA2013's luminous exhibitor line-up is well-known Singaporean company JCS Vanetec, which specialises in the manufacturing of 3D Compressor Airfoils, or Vanes, for all sizes of commercial and military aircraft engines. JCS Vanetec's services include the manufacturing of sheet metal components and offer Tool & Die turn-key solutions to the local and international gas turbine industry.
In tandem with this industry trend, MTA2013, returning to the exhibition halls at Singapore Expo from 9 to 12 April next year, is geared to impress industry visitors by unveiling of a specialised group of companies housed within the Capabilities Hub.
The Capabilities Hub will showcase a strong cohort of enterprises that serve the precision engineering industry. These companies will demonstrate their aptitudes in the manufacture of high-quality, advanced solutions - all dedicated to meet the emergent needs of Asia's Aerospace, Complex Equipment, Medical Technology and Oil & Gas sectors.
They include A & One Precision Engineering, ACP Metal Finishing, Beyonics Technology, CEI Contract Manufacturing, Frontken, Fujicon Engineering, Hup Fatt Brothers Engineering, Index Precision Industries, JEP Precision Engineering, JCS-Vanetec, Meiban Group, Microcast, NanoTechnology Manufacturing, Onn Wah Precision Machining Racer Technology, ST Kinetics Integrated Engineering, SolidMicron Technologies Tru-Marine, Trek 2000 International, Vigor Precision Engineering and Wah Son Engineering.
A & One, founded in 1992, has established itself as the premier service provider in the precision machinery industry. The company currently serves customers specialising in Data Storage, Semiconductor, Equipment Manufacturing, Medical Technology, Aerospace, Oil and Gas and Telecommunication Industries.
Mr. Leong Weng Kuan, Corporate General Manager and Sales Director of A & One Precision Engineering states, "Singapore's manufacturing economy is geared towards high value-added, low volume and high mix products. The setting up of the Capabilities Hub provides a platform for local companies to showcase the four high-end sectors Singapore is focusing on to the rest of the international brands present at the exhibition."
Also serving the aerospace sector, Onn Wah Precision Machining, is an AS9100 certified precision machining company. The company deals in complex medium-size components in a high-mix, low volume environment, and serves a diverse range of sectors including the Aerospace, Semiconductor, Oil & Gas, Biomedical and Optics. Company's Managing Director Mr. Lam Keng Yew believes that companies need to be niche to be able to compete in the current manufacturing environment.
"Singapore's manufacturing landscape has changed drastically. Due to the higher cost and labour constraints, we can only focus on manufacturing high value components which are either mission-critical, of high complexity or with high IP content. This is in line with the aerospace industry, which not only requires higher complexity parts, but also a complete system to ensure full compliances to defined processes with a traceable documentation," states Mr. Lam.
"Having spent the last few years developing ways to produce complex parts consistently with automated documentation flow that fulfil the aerospace requirements, Onn Wah is well prepared to provide such machining capabilities, and we're glad that MTA2013's Capabilities Hub provides a platform for us to showcase what we can offer."
Adding to MTA2013's luminous exhibitor line-up is well-known Singaporean company JCS Vanetec, which specialises in the manufacturing of 3D Compressor Airfoils, or Vanes, for all sizes of commercial and military aircraft engines. JCS Vanetec's services include the manufacturing of sheet metal components and offer Tool & Die turn-key solutions to the local and international gas turbine industry.
Don't Be Fooled by the Corporate Hype
If you replace all that notorious “foreign oil” with coal you lose. Coal releases the most carbon dioxide, sulfur compounds, mercury, and even radiation of all fossil fuels, all of which kill our own people, wildlife, water and land, and send acid rain into Canada as well.
Replace it with tar sands (think Alberta, Keystone XL pipeline) you lose. Whole landscapes are pillaged to get it, and each barrel of oil produced uses several barrels of fresh water, which itself is a threatened resource.
Try oil shale you lose. Landscape depredation, acid runoff, mercury, arsenic- ick.
Turn it around and export our coal you lose, ‘cuz all that garbage we ship to them returns home to haunt us.
And don’t fool yourself that any of these alternatives will be cheap. The ersatz oil is much more expensive than "light sweet crude" straight from the ground. All versions of it take massive processing even to get to a pipeline. The only reason we’re talking about it now is the price of conventional oil is now consistently high enough the oil companies will bother to invest in it. Coal is cheaper to buy, but much more expensive to clean up.
So if you look only at short term geopolitics any option seems okay, but that’s just it. It’s not. If your Plan B hurts you and yours why would you do it? Focus instead on solar, wind, tide, biofuels and other potential renewable sources and it’s all different.
All the equations change when your Energy Independence is also your Response To Climate Change, because no matter what, it’s coming. On November 24, the New York Times ran an article summarizing a NOAA/USGS report on what different levels of sea level rise would do to a number of US cities, including Seattle (you can see Shoreline - goodbye, Point Wells) and Tacoma.
This is something we, ourselves, can be dealing with. All of us could put up a solar system or a wind generator on our own homes. We have significant tidal flow just off our shore. We could tap all of these options, and we should. I don’t really think we’ll see any advantage to severing our water system from Seattle City Light, but setting up our own electric utility?
That may work beautifully. All that large-scale stuff is fine, but take a look at what the small-scale approach brings to us: resilience.
The more of our own energy we generate here the more we can weather whatever Mother Nature dumps on us. Instead of relying only on hydroelectric dams in the mountains and their huge high-tension lines we could make our own and add it into the grid so when the storms next take out the system we’ll have a backup.
If it’s below freezing and your power is out maybe your neighbor will be generating and will be able to keep you and yours going. Maybe next time you’ll return the favor. Have you ever tripped and fallen? Of course. Everyone has. Have you ever seen a centipede trip itself? No. Can’t be done. It has dozens of legs, all compensating for what happens to the rest. It is inherently stable and resilient.
That’s how we need to structure our electric grid. It’s that new Smart Grid all the cool people are talking about. It's NOT about 'going off the grid' it's about being more completely integrated into the grid- a producer and a consumer!
What we are trying to avoid is a Malthusian world. Thomas Robert Malthus was the first thinker to point out that as population rises it puts greater and greater strains on the food supply and eventually will take care of itself by starvation and disease.
An ugly thought, to be sure, and we’ve so far avoided the worst of the consequences here, but it’s laughable to think we can outrun the Horsemen forever if we don’t repent our rapacious ways. And it’s not like this is all a matter of mere inertia.
Replace it with tar sands (think Alberta, Keystone XL pipeline) you lose. Whole landscapes are pillaged to get it, and each barrel of oil produced uses several barrels of fresh water, which itself is a threatened resource.
Try oil shale you lose. Landscape depredation, acid runoff, mercury, arsenic- ick.
Turn it around and export our coal you lose, ‘cuz all that garbage we ship to them returns home to haunt us.
And don’t fool yourself that any of these alternatives will be cheap. The ersatz oil is much more expensive than "light sweet crude" straight from the ground. All versions of it take massive processing even to get to a pipeline. The only reason we’re talking about it now is the price of conventional oil is now consistently high enough the oil companies will bother to invest in it. Coal is cheaper to buy, but much more expensive to clean up.
So if you look only at short term geopolitics any option seems okay, but that’s just it. It’s not. If your Plan B hurts you and yours why would you do it? Focus instead on solar, wind, tide, biofuels and other potential renewable sources and it’s all different.
All the equations change when your Energy Independence is also your Response To Climate Change, because no matter what, it’s coming. On November 24, the New York Times ran an article summarizing a NOAA/USGS report on what different levels of sea level rise would do to a number of US cities, including Seattle (you can see Shoreline - goodbye, Point Wells) and Tacoma.
This is something we, ourselves, can be dealing with. All of us could put up a solar system or a wind generator on our own homes. We have significant tidal flow just off our shore. We could tap all of these options, and we should. I don’t really think we’ll see any advantage to severing our water system from Seattle City Light, but setting up our own electric utility?
That may work beautifully. All that large-scale stuff is fine, but take a look at what the small-scale approach brings to us: resilience.
The more of our own energy we generate here the more we can weather whatever Mother Nature dumps on us. Instead of relying only on hydroelectric dams in the mountains and their huge high-tension lines we could make our own and add it into the grid so when the storms next take out the system we’ll have a backup.
If it’s below freezing and your power is out maybe your neighbor will be generating and will be able to keep you and yours going. Maybe next time you’ll return the favor. Have you ever tripped and fallen? Of course. Everyone has. Have you ever seen a centipede trip itself? No. Can’t be done. It has dozens of legs, all compensating for what happens to the rest. It is inherently stable and resilient.
That’s how we need to structure our electric grid. It’s that new Smart Grid all the cool people are talking about. It's NOT about 'going off the grid' it's about being more completely integrated into the grid- a producer and a consumer!
What we are trying to avoid is a Malthusian world. Thomas Robert Malthus was the first thinker to point out that as population rises it puts greater and greater strains on the food supply and eventually will take care of itself by starvation and disease.
An ugly thought, to be sure, and we’ve so far avoided the worst of the consequences here, but it’s laughable to think we can outrun the Horsemen forever if we don’t repent our rapacious ways. And it’s not like this is all a matter of mere inertia.
2012年12月12日 星期三
Europe's Energy Transformation
When residents of the small city of Freiburg, Germany, go to school or work in the morning, they pass dozens of solar installations. There are solar panels on homes, on churches, on the facade of the main train station, on the soccer stadium, throughout a "solar housing development" and a "solar business park" and on the roofs of schools. All told, Freiburg's solar photovoltaic (PV) installations produce enough electricity to meet the needs of tens of thousands of homes.
Additionally, five large wind turbines are situated on hilltops within the city's boundaries and contribute to the town's energy supply. Small hydroelectric plants sit on the river, as well as combined heat and power plants and biomass plants that burn biogas and rapeseed oil, along with other facilities that burn wood chips and pellets.
Freiburg is known as a "Green City," but it is not atypical for the region or the nation. In May 2012, solar PV supplied 10 percent of Germany's electricity. During the first nine months of 2012, Germany produced enough electricity from renewable energy sources including wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric plants to supply 26 percent of its demand.
This capacity has been growing rapidly from year to year, and renewables already represent roughly double the share of Germany's electricity production as compared to the United States.
A high percentage of renewable energy production is not unique to Germany. Spain has been averaging 30-31 percent renewable electricity in recent months, and Italy reached 24 percent renewables in its electricity production over the first 10 months of 2012. The Czech Republic also has installed enough solar to achieve nearly the same per-capita amount of solar electric generating capacity as Germany. In many other European nations, renewable energy capacities continue to grow rapidly.
In Germany, the shift toward renewable energy is called the Energiewende, roughly translated as the energy transformation. It includes not only a transition away from fossil fuels, but also away from nuclear power, particularly after the Fukushima Disaster of March 2011.
Few Americans know that this process is happening. And among those who do are those who would like to delay it happening here as long as possible.
The experiences of Europe have never been more relevant to our circumstances in the United States than now. Following Hurricane Sandy - the second most devastating storm to hit New York and the Northeast in as many years - the issue of global warming and climate change has taken on a new urgency. With the re-election of President Barack Obama, many environmentalists see the potential for national political action.
You would think that at this moment both activists and policymakers in the United States would be clamoring to follow Germany's lead. They aren't.
There are multiple probable explanations for why this is not happening. Regulatory barriers exist to establishing German-style policies here, but a larger problem is the ongoing political deadlock in Washington. This has narrowed our ideas of what is possible and reinforced an American exceptionalism, where we don't look to successful solutions from other nations.
Another central problem is that the US media has done a poor job of telling the story of the energy transformation, and misinformation abounds. While much of this confusion can be traced to the fossil fuel industries and right-wing think tanks, there is plenty of blame to spread around for the distortion.
Additionally, five large wind turbines are situated on hilltops within the city's boundaries and contribute to the town's energy supply. Small hydroelectric plants sit on the river, as well as combined heat and power plants and biomass plants that burn biogas and rapeseed oil, along with other facilities that burn wood chips and pellets.
Freiburg is known as a "Green City," but it is not atypical for the region or the nation. In May 2012, solar PV supplied 10 percent of Germany's electricity. During the first nine months of 2012, Germany produced enough electricity from renewable energy sources including wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric plants to supply 26 percent of its demand.
This capacity has been growing rapidly from year to year, and renewables already represent roughly double the share of Germany's electricity production as compared to the United States.
A high percentage of renewable energy production is not unique to Germany. Spain has been averaging 30-31 percent renewable electricity in recent months, and Italy reached 24 percent renewables in its electricity production over the first 10 months of 2012. The Czech Republic also has installed enough solar to achieve nearly the same per-capita amount of solar electric generating capacity as Germany. In many other European nations, renewable energy capacities continue to grow rapidly.
In Germany, the shift toward renewable energy is called the Energiewende, roughly translated as the energy transformation. It includes not only a transition away from fossil fuels, but also away from nuclear power, particularly after the Fukushima Disaster of March 2011.
Few Americans know that this process is happening. And among those who do are those who would like to delay it happening here as long as possible.
The experiences of Europe have never been more relevant to our circumstances in the United States than now. Following Hurricane Sandy - the second most devastating storm to hit New York and the Northeast in as many years - the issue of global warming and climate change has taken on a new urgency. With the re-election of President Barack Obama, many environmentalists see the potential for national political action.
You would think that at this moment both activists and policymakers in the United States would be clamoring to follow Germany's lead. They aren't.
There are multiple probable explanations for why this is not happening. Regulatory barriers exist to establishing German-style policies here, but a larger problem is the ongoing political deadlock in Washington. This has narrowed our ideas of what is possible and reinforced an American exceptionalism, where we don't look to successful solutions from other nations.
Another central problem is that the US media has done a poor job of telling the story of the energy transformation, and misinformation abounds. While much of this confusion can be traced to the fossil fuel industries and right-wing think tanks, there is plenty of blame to spread around for the distortion.
2012年12月11日 星期二
Canon imageClass MF4890dw
The first thing to make clear about the 225 Canon imageClass MF4890dw mono laser MFP is that it’s essentially identical to the imageClass MF4880dw, except for one major addition. This model has an automatic document feeder (ADF) that can duplex, meaning it can turn pages over to scan both sides. For anyone who has to deal with scanning, copying, or faxing duplex documents, this can save loads of time. Canon only produces the MF4880dw in the US, however, so for UK customers, the MF4890dw is your only choice (as shipping from the States will mean the lesser MF4880dw costs more, anyway).
The duplexing ADF also offers a somewhat higher paper capacity than the MF4880dw's ADF, at 50 sheets rather than 35. The MF4890dw is a good choice for either sharing on a network in a micro or small office, or for use as a heavy-duty personal printer. It allows you to connect to either a wired or Wi-Fi network, but limits its Wi-Fi capability to infrastructure mode only, which means you can only connect to a network with an access point.
Basic MFP features include the ability to print and fax from as well as scan to a PC, including over a network, plus the ability to work as a standalone copier and fax machine. When it comes to printing, paper handling is suitable for most small offices with light to medium-duty print needs, with one 250-sheet tray, a manual feed, and an automatic print duplexer.
Very much worth mentioning is the fact that the combination of a duplexing ADF and duplexing printer lets you copy both single and double-sided originals to your choice of single or double-sided copies.
Setting up the MF4890dw is typical for a small office mono laser MFP. Given its size, at roughly 390 x 430 x 360mm (WxDxH), you probably won't want the printer sitting on your desk, but you should be able to find room for it even in a small office without too much trouble. For my tests I connected it to a network using the Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.
The default setting for the MF4890dw driver is for duplex printing, which is the setting I used for our official tests. However, there's a significant difference between Canon's ratings for the printer in duplex and simplex (one-sided) modes, at 16 pages per minute (ppm) for duplex and 26 ppm for simplex, so I tested both.
The rated speeds should be close to what you'll see when printing a text file with little formatting. On our tests, I timed the printer (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at 9.6 ppm in duplex mode and 12.2 ppm in simplex mode. Not surprisingly, both modes were essentially tied with the performance of the MF4880dw.
A better indication of the speed relative to the competition, however, is that even in duplex mode, the MF4890dw was essentially tied with the slightly more expensive OKI MB451w, even though the MB451w was set for simplex mode as the default setting.
Output quality for the MF4890dw is more than acceptable for most business uses, with text at the high end of the range that includes most mono laser MFPs. Both graphics and photo output are at the low end of the equivalent, but much tighter, ranges for graphics and photo quality.
For text, that translates to the output being suitable by most people's standards for any business use short of high quality desktop publishing. Graphics output is a step down from that level, suitable for any internal business needs, but only potentially good enough for PowerPoint hand-outs or the like, depending on how demanding an eye you have.
The duplexing ADF also offers a somewhat higher paper capacity than the MF4880dw's ADF, at 50 sheets rather than 35. The MF4890dw is a good choice for either sharing on a network in a micro or small office, or for use as a heavy-duty personal printer. It allows you to connect to either a wired or Wi-Fi network, but limits its Wi-Fi capability to infrastructure mode only, which means you can only connect to a network with an access point.
Basic MFP features include the ability to print and fax from as well as scan to a PC, including over a network, plus the ability to work as a standalone copier and fax machine. When it comes to printing, paper handling is suitable for most small offices with light to medium-duty print needs, with one 250-sheet tray, a manual feed, and an automatic print duplexer.
Very much worth mentioning is the fact that the combination of a duplexing ADF and duplexing printer lets you copy both single and double-sided originals to your choice of single or double-sided copies.
Setting up the MF4890dw is typical for a small office mono laser MFP. Given its size, at roughly 390 x 430 x 360mm (WxDxH), you probably won't want the printer sitting on your desk, but you should be able to find room for it even in a small office without too much trouble. For my tests I connected it to a network using the Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.
The default setting for the MF4890dw driver is for duplex printing, which is the setting I used for our official tests. However, there's a significant difference between Canon's ratings for the printer in duplex and simplex (one-sided) modes, at 16 pages per minute (ppm) for duplex and 26 ppm for simplex, so I tested both.
The rated speeds should be close to what you'll see when printing a text file with little formatting. On our tests, I timed the printer (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at 9.6 ppm in duplex mode and 12.2 ppm in simplex mode. Not surprisingly, both modes were essentially tied with the performance of the MF4880dw.
A better indication of the speed relative to the competition, however, is that even in duplex mode, the MF4890dw was essentially tied with the slightly more expensive OKI MB451w, even though the MB451w was set for simplex mode as the default setting.
Output quality for the MF4890dw is more than acceptable for most business uses, with text at the high end of the range that includes most mono laser MFPs. Both graphics and photo output are at the low end of the equivalent, but much tighter, ranges for graphics and photo quality.
For text, that translates to the output being suitable by most people's standards for any business use short of high quality desktop publishing. Graphics output is a step down from that level, suitable for any internal business needs, but only potentially good enough for PowerPoint hand-outs or the like, depending on how demanding an eye you have.
2012年12月9日 星期日
Military industry
The output of machine tools in China is increasing fast in both value and the number of units and the growth in numerical-control machine tools is even greater, indicating huge market potential.
According to a recent report by the German Engineering Federation, the market share of boring milling machines currently in China is only 10 percent but the percentage internationally is 24 percent.
The share of machine centers in the world market is 22 percent and that of grinding machines in the market is 17 percent, roughly 10 percent higher than those in China.
While trade undercurrents have been frosty, German manufacturers have more than enough reason to rejoice as they enter a new sector that has not been well tapped in the past: China's military industry.
The 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) outlined the introduction of deepening industrial reforms aimed at boosting indigenous capabilities and propelling State-owned defense companies onto the global stage.
Against lackluster global demand, China's military industry has in contrast proved to be a "stable growth area" for the German manufacturers, said Hermann Hirsch, managing director of sales and marketing at Metabo-werke GmbH, a manufacturer of power tools and abrasives.
Metabo makes electric tools that are widely applied in metal processing and architecture decoration. But the company is poised to ride the military modernization boom as China wants to be more prominent on the global stage.
"We have participated in this kind of 'official bidding' in the past but now we are a lot more focused on this area because we see more possibilities in the future," Hirsch said.
He revealed that Metabo completed a project on ship maintenance in China by mid-2012 and is now in the final negotiation process with military factories of the Chinese navy.
Metabo's small angle grinders and big hammers will have big opportunities to be the selected tools in the future and it also has a good chance of selling impact drills and sanders to the Chinese military factories, he said.
Furthermore, Metabo made successful bids for two electricity generating sites in Zhejiang province in East China and Liaoning province in Northeast China, where rotary hammers, cordless drills and magnetic core drills are the main products.
According to Leibinger from Trumpf, shipbuilding is a niche market in which it has cooperated. But the Chinese presence is not yet strong because the country's yards still need to move up the value chain by focusing on high quality.
There is a more imminent market for aircraft making, which pushes up demand for engine components built using laser welding, he said.
After listing aerospace as a symbol and target of China's "high-value" ambition, the government pledged 1.5 trillion yuan to develop the industry.
Two years ago, Emag started developing a tailor-made machine for blisk manufacturing, a key component used in the turbines of aircrafts, said Kollmar.
In April, it handed over the first such product to the Aviation Industry Corp of China, China's leading aircraft manufacturer, a subsidiary of which is in charge of making the country's first indigenous plane.
"We definitely see growth and potential for turbine manufacturing, as needs will continue to expand. The biggest demand is in Asia and, of course, China," he said.
The turnover of this business sector has doubled every year since its establishment in 2010. Kollmar expected it to form at least 20 percent of its overall revenue in the coming few years.
Hammerl from Index agreed. He forecast the industry in China will enjoy explosive development in the next five years, with demand for making indigenous spare parts continually soaring.
"China is just at the infancy stage. We see great opportunities but systematic training on the basic know-hows of those machines is critical," he said.
According to a recent report by the German Engineering Federation, the market share of boring milling machines currently in China is only 10 percent but the percentage internationally is 24 percent.
The share of machine centers in the world market is 22 percent and that of grinding machines in the market is 17 percent, roughly 10 percent higher than those in China.
While trade undercurrents have been frosty, German manufacturers have more than enough reason to rejoice as they enter a new sector that has not been well tapped in the past: China's military industry.
The 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) outlined the introduction of deepening industrial reforms aimed at boosting indigenous capabilities and propelling State-owned defense companies onto the global stage.
Against lackluster global demand, China's military industry has in contrast proved to be a "stable growth area" for the German manufacturers, said Hermann Hirsch, managing director of sales and marketing at Metabo-werke GmbH, a manufacturer of power tools and abrasives.
Metabo makes electric tools that are widely applied in metal processing and architecture decoration. But the company is poised to ride the military modernization boom as China wants to be more prominent on the global stage.
"We have participated in this kind of 'official bidding' in the past but now we are a lot more focused on this area because we see more possibilities in the future," Hirsch said.
He revealed that Metabo completed a project on ship maintenance in China by mid-2012 and is now in the final negotiation process with military factories of the Chinese navy.
Metabo's small angle grinders and big hammers will have big opportunities to be the selected tools in the future and it also has a good chance of selling impact drills and sanders to the Chinese military factories, he said.
Furthermore, Metabo made successful bids for two electricity generating sites in Zhejiang province in East China and Liaoning province in Northeast China, where rotary hammers, cordless drills and magnetic core drills are the main products.
According to Leibinger from Trumpf, shipbuilding is a niche market in which it has cooperated. But the Chinese presence is not yet strong because the country's yards still need to move up the value chain by focusing on high quality.
There is a more imminent market for aircraft making, which pushes up demand for engine components built using laser welding, he said.
After listing aerospace as a symbol and target of China's "high-value" ambition, the government pledged 1.5 trillion yuan to develop the industry.
Two years ago, Emag started developing a tailor-made machine for blisk manufacturing, a key component used in the turbines of aircrafts, said Kollmar.
In April, it handed over the first such product to the Aviation Industry Corp of China, China's leading aircraft manufacturer, a subsidiary of which is in charge of making the country's first indigenous plane.
"We definitely see growth and potential for turbine manufacturing, as needs will continue to expand. The biggest demand is in Asia and, of course, China," he said.
The turnover of this business sector has doubled every year since its establishment in 2010. Kollmar expected it to form at least 20 percent of its overall revenue in the coming few years.
Hammerl from Index agreed. He forecast the industry in China will enjoy explosive development in the next five years, with demand for making indigenous spare parts continually soaring.
"China is just at the infancy stage. We see great opportunities but systematic training on the basic know-hows of those machines is critical," he said.
2012年12月6日 星期四
RODE Microphones: the sound of success
THE STORY of how RODE Microphones got its name hearkens back to its earliest days. Founder Peter Freedman started the company in the 1980s by disassembling Chinese capacitor microphones and replacing the electronics inside to yield better performance.
After a particularly successful day demonstrating the product at a convention, the team noted that the microphones were taking off “like a rat up a drain pipe”, which eventually led to the name “Rodent”.
Freedman then arrived at the final form of the brand, RODE, by replacing the O with the minuscule O in tribute to his roots in Sweden, and separating the latter “NT” part of the word to use as a designated prefix for his range of microphones.
Today, RODE Microphones is a name known throughout the global home recording, cinematography and professional sound and music recording markets. All its manufacturing is done at its facility in Silverwater, NSW, and it employs 200 people world-wide.
In addition to its headquarters in Silverwater, RODE Microphones has a design and marketing studio in Surry Hills, an office in Santa Barbara in the US, and an adjunct facility in Seattle, dedicated to R&D for the Event line of studio monitors, which RODE bought in 2006.
The success of the company today is due largely to the drive of Freedman and his staff, their dedication to the world of sound equipment, and his ability to build a business and a highly competent team, as well as a rare dedication to quality Australian manufacturing.
Freedman Electronics started out importing German sound equipment from DYNACORD, and Peter took over the company after his father passed away in 1987. Hoping to expand the company, Freedman borrowed large sums of money in the late 1980s, but then the stock market crash hit.
“I ended up owing a fortune, lost the business, lost my house, lost everything,” Freedman said. “I was looking for ways to try and make money. It was just being at the right place at the right time, trying things. I had access to a recording microphone which we sourced, and modified.”
Freedman managed to catch the wave of modern home and digital recording. RODE Microphones catered to the home users who wanted better microphones, but without the exorbitant costs associated with traditional German units.
From this early success, RODE Microphones continued building on its capabilities, developing its own products, even collaborating with the CSIRO and academic and industry physicists to push the boundaries of what it could do in the area of sound.
“A lot of accountants told us that you could get things in China for very low cost, the labour is great, and people want to supply. Even today, we have great relationships with people over there,” Freedman told Electronics News.
“But I could see that companies there were going to eventually want to do their own thing. And some of the ones that I was talking to did go on to try and do their own brands.”
To protect his company, Freedman started investing in machinery 16 years ago, gradually building up a formidable arsenal of manufacturing equipment, which allowed him to bring more operations in-house.
“It’s taken 15 years of learning how to use the machinery, getting the staff and buying these very high tech machines to get to where we are now,” he said. “I have machines that make labour irrelevant. People ask me about low cost labour, and I say I don’t care, I’ve got no labour in some of the stuff we make.”
But it’s not just about the gear: staff training and know-how is the glue that keeps the model together.
“That’s the secret of Australian manufacturing: high tech machinery and very clever people,” Freedman said. “People think you can just turn on manufacturing by money. You can’t. It takes ages to train people to the point where they understand it. We’ve got many people here who’ve been at it nine or ten years or more.”
After a particularly successful day demonstrating the product at a convention, the team noted that the microphones were taking off “like a rat up a drain pipe”, which eventually led to the name “Rodent”.
Freedman then arrived at the final form of the brand, RODE, by replacing the O with the minuscule O in tribute to his roots in Sweden, and separating the latter “NT” part of the word to use as a designated prefix for his range of microphones.
Today, RODE Microphones is a name known throughout the global home recording, cinematography and professional sound and music recording markets. All its manufacturing is done at its facility in Silverwater, NSW, and it employs 200 people world-wide.
In addition to its headquarters in Silverwater, RODE Microphones has a design and marketing studio in Surry Hills, an office in Santa Barbara in the US, and an adjunct facility in Seattle, dedicated to R&D for the Event line of studio monitors, which RODE bought in 2006.
The success of the company today is due largely to the drive of Freedman and his staff, their dedication to the world of sound equipment, and his ability to build a business and a highly competent team, as well as a rare dedication to quality Australian manufacturing.
Freedman Electronics started out importing German sound equipment from DYNACORD, and Peter took over the company after his father passed away in 1987. Hoping to expand the company, Freedman borrowed large sums of money in the late 1980s, but then the stock market crash hit.
“I ended up owing a fortune, lost the business, lost my house, lost everything,” Freedman said. “I was looking for ways to try and make money. It was just being at the right place at the right time, trying things. I had access to a recording microphone which we sourced, and modified.”
Freedman managed to catch the wave of modern home and digital recording. RODE Microphones catered to the home users who wanted better microphones, but without the exorbitant costs associated with traditional German units.
From this early success, RODE Microphones continued building on its capabilities, developing its own products, even collaborating with the CSIRO and academic and industry physicists to push the boundaries of what it could do in the area of sound.
“A lot of accountants told us that you could get things in China for very low cost, the labour is great, and people want to supply. Even today, we have great relationships with people over there,” Freedman told Electronics News.
“But I could see that companies there were going to eventually want to do their own thing. And some of the ones that I was talking to did go on to try and do their own brands.”
To protect his company, Freedman started investing in machinery 16 years ago, gradually building up a formidable arsenal of manufacturing equipment, which allowed him to bring more operations in-house.
“It’s taken 15 years of learning how to use the machinery, getting the staff and buying these very high tech machines to get to where we are now,” he said. “I have machines that make labour irrelevant. People ask me about low cost labour, and I say I don’t care, I’ve got no labour in some of the stuff we make.”
But it’s not just about the gear: staff training and know-how is the glue that keeps the model together.
“That’s the secret of Australian manufacturing: high tech machinery and very clever people,” Freedman said. “People think you can just turn on manufacturing by money. You can’t. It takes ages to train people to the point where they understand it. We’ve got many people here who’ve been at it nine or ten years or more.”
2012年12月4日 星期二
Pinokio lamp is the real-life counterpart
Luxo Jr, the adorable little lamp that appears in the Disney Pixar logo, illustrates how animators can breathe life into mundane inanimate objects. Now, robotics technology allows us to do the same thing in real life, as shown by a trio from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Using a combination of readily available robotics and automated manufacturing technology, mixed with open-source software, they were able to grace a desk lamp with a little personality.
Pinokio, unlike its fairy tale namesake, needs strings to move – strings of code, that is. Its actions are driven primarily by Arduino and image processing software OpenCV, which searches for faces in the images from its web cam. When it finds a face, it attempts to follow it as if trying to maintain eye contact.
Programmer Shanshan Zhou ensured it would change its behavior with preset "moods" – introvert or extrovert – causing the lamp to recoil or stretch outwards, respectively. When switched off, Pinokio responds by flicking its power switch back on – similar to the most useless machine ever – further adding to its character.
Adam Ben-Dror, who worked out the mechanical details, found that it only took six servo motors to actuate the lamp's hinges. These hinges had to be replaced with ones he designed in CAD, which were then manufactured using a variety of techniques, from 3D printing, laser cutting, water jet cutting, and CNC lathing to good old-fashioned welding. He also had to work out how to fit the halogen bulb (covered with a mechanical iris), a hacked webcam, a microphone, and a pair of servos – including the necessary wiring – into the back of the lamp's shade.
As you'll see in the video below, the end result lives up to the concept sketches provided by the team's designer, Joss Dogget. Pinokio springs to life and engages its audience with seemingly effortless interaction.
FROM filing keys by hand to laser cutting, Rodney Graham has seen it all in the past quarter of a century. The RCG Locksmiths proprietor yesterday celebrated 25 years in the industry. He was just 16 when he embarked on a four-year apprenticeship with Bathurst Locksmiths.
"I finished school on the Thursday afternoon and started there on the Friday morning," he said. As a first-year apprentice, he took home $81 in his first paypacket. He said he's seen many changes in the industry in the past two decades, none bigger than the advances in machinery and technology.
"The mechanics of a lock haven't changed at all. But the technology we use to put that together has changed," he said. "We used to cut keys by hand with a file. You don't miss those days, but you do.
"You learn a lot by doing it the original way." Nowadays, Rodney works with key cutting machines worth over $40,000 each. "They have cameras in them now," he said. "We've got the best and the most advanced equipment in the Central West."
Rodney and his wife have been at the helm of RCG Locksmiths for almost five years. What started as a two-man operation has expanded to involve 11 staff, including three fully-qualified locksmiths and two apprentices, and two shopfronts, one in Bathurst and one in Lithgow.
On the side, Rodney and his wife also run Prestige Embroidery Bathurst and a commercial laundry, R and G Linen.
"When we opened, we were just doing residential work and key cutting," Rodney said. "Now we do residential, architectural, commercial, automatic doors, automotive locks and keys, roller and car remotes, and much more.”
"We just keep expanding. But I love what I do. I work between 70 and 80 hours a week, but at the end of the day, I love helping people and I love my job." he said.
Pinokio, unlike its fairy tale namesake, needs strings to move – strings of code, that is. Its actions are driven primarily by Arduino and image processing software OpenCV, which searches for faces in the images from its web cam. When it finds a face, it attempts to follow it as if trying to maintain eye contact.
Programmer Shanshan Zhou ensured it would change its behavior with preset "moods" – introvert or extrovert – causing the lamp to recoil or stretch outwards, respectively. When switched off, Pinokio responds by flicking its power switch back on – similar to the most useless machine ever – further adding to its character.
Adam Ben-Dror, who worked out the mechanical details, found that it only took six servo motors to actuate the lamp's hinges. These hinges had to be replaced with ones he designed in CAD, which were then manufactured using a variety of techniques, from 3D printing, laser cutting, water jet cutting, and CNC lathing to good old-fashioned welding. He also had to work out how to fit the halogen bulb (covered with a mechanical iris), a hacked webcam, a microphone, and a pair of servos – including the necessary wiring – into the back of the lamp's shade.
As you'll see in the video below, the end result lives up to the concept sketches provided by the team's designer, Joss Dogget. Pinokio springs to life and engages its audience with seemingly effortless interaction.
FROM filing keys by hand to laser cutting, Rodney Graham has seen it all in the past quarter of a century. The RCG Locksmiths proprietor yesterday celebrated 25 years in the industry. He was just 16 when he embarked on a four-year apprenticeship with Bathurst Locksmiths.
"I finished school on the Thursday afternoon and started there on the Friday morning," he said. As a first-year apprentice, he took home $81 in his first paypacket. He said he's seen many changes in the industry in the past two decades, none bigger than the advances in machinery and technology.
"The mechanics of a lock haven't changed at all. But the technology we use to put that together has changed," he said. "We used to cut keys by hand with a file. You don't miss those days, but you do.
"You learn a lot by doing it the original way." Nowadays, Rodney works with key cutting machines worth over $40,000 each. "They have cameras in them now," he said. "We've got the best and the most advanced equipment in the Central West."
Rodney and his wife have been at the helm of RCG Locksmiths for almost five years. What started as a two-man operation has expanded to involve 11 staff, including three fully-qualified locksmiths and two apprentices, and two shopfronts, one in Bathurst and one in Lithgow.
On the side, Rodney and his wife also run Prestige Embroidery Bathurst and a commercial laundry, R and G Linen.
"When we opened, we were just doing residential work and key cutting," Rodney said. "Now we do residential, architectural, commercial, automatic doors, automotive locks and keys, roller and car remotes, and much more.”
"We just keep expanding. But I love what I do. I work between 70 and 80 hours a week, but at the end of the day, I love helping people and I love my job." he said.
2012年12月3日 星期一
Ducted Wind Turbines: An Energy Game Changer?
When it comes to wind power, unconventional schemes to boost power and cut costs have never been wanting. Quiet Revolution offers a vertical axis turbine that looks more like a blender than a power generation device. WhalePower proposes mimicking on turbine blades the tubercles found on whale fins to increase power production. Meanwhile Altaeros Energies is developing a flying donut to harness increased wind speeds found at higher elevations.
Earlier this month SheerWind, a wind power startup based in Chaska, Minnesota, added a new design, INVELOX, to the list. INVELOX, short for “increasing the velocity of wind” is a ducted turbine that looks a bit like a giant funnel sitting on top of an equally large periscope. The ductwork is designed to capture wind from any direction, increase its speed and concentrate the moving airflow before passing it through a relatively small turbine at ground level.
It’s an interesting concept that attempts to address a number of challenges facing conventional wind turbines. The power produced by a wind turbine increases with the cube of the wind speed so any increase in speed could offer a significant power boost. Increasing wind speed also reduces the cut in speed, or the minimum wind speed required to begin generating power. SheerWind officials say that by speeding up the wind they can boost power output by 280 percent and reduce the cut in speed by 80 percent to a wind speed of 2 miles per hour.
Another key advantage touted by SheerWind is smaller, ground-based turbines. A growing challenge for conventional wind turbine developers is the ability to build, transport, and mount giant turbine blades. By funneling the wind down to a smaller diameter duct, SheerWind is able to use a turbine with blades that are 80 percent smaller than those used in conventional turbines with similar output. Keeping the turbine at ground level will also significantly reduce installation and maintenance costs. All told, INVELOX should generate power for roughly one third less cost than conventional wind turbines, company officials say.
All of this sounds great but can INVELOX deliver? Researchers at The City College of New York have done fluid dynamics modeling of INVELOX and say the company’s claims stand up. (The researchers, mechanical engineers Yiannis Andreopoulos and Ali Sadegh and are listed as “technical advisors” by SheerWind but say they have not received compensation from the company for their analyses)
Martin Hansen, a wind energy expert at the Technical University of Denmark, disagrees. He says INVELOX will draw in and speed up the wind as claimed, but when the turbine is placed inside the ductwork it will create such high pressure that little additional air will be drawn into the device, making it a poor alternative to conventional turbine designs.
SheerWind completed it’s first large scale prototype earlier this month. CEO Daryoush Allaei says initial testing without the turbine resulted in a near doubling of wind speed passing through the device as predicted in prior modeling. Allaei says they will now install the turbine and begin monitoring power output.
Earlier this month SheerWind, a wind power startup based in Chaska, Minnesota, added a new design, INVELOX, to the list. INVELOX, short for “increasing the velocity of wind” is a ducted turbine that looks a bit like a giant funnel sitting on top of an equally large periscope. The ductwork is designed to capture wind from any direction, increase its speed and concentrate the moving airflow before passing it through a relatively small turbine at ground level.
It’s an interesting concept that attempts to address a number of challenges facing conventional wind turbines. The power produced by a wind turbine increases with the cube of the wind speed so any increase in speed could offer a significant power boost. Increasing wind speed also reduces the cut in speed, or the minimum wind speed required to begin generating power. SheerWind officials say that by speeding up the wind they can boost power output by 280 percent and reduce the cut in speed by 80 percent to a wind speed of 2 miles per hour.
Another key advantage touted by SheerWind is smaller, ground-based turbines. A growing challenge for conventional wind turbine developers is the ability to build, transport, and mount giant turbine blades. By funneling the wind down to a smaller diameter duct, SheerWind is able to use a turbine with blades that are 80 percent smaller than those used in conventional turbines with similar output. Keeping the turbine at ground level will also significantly reduce installation and maintenance costs. All told, INVELOX should generate power for roughly one third less cost than conventional wind turbines, company officials say.
All of this sounds great but can INVELOX deliver? Researchers at The City College of New York have done fluid dynamics modeling of INVELOX and say the company’s claims stand up. (The researchers, mechanical engineers Yiannis Andreopoulos and Ali Sadegh and are listed as “technical advisors” by SheerWind but say they have not received compensation from the company for their analyses)
Martin Hansen, a wind energy expert at the Technical University of Denmark, disagrees. He says INVELOX will draw in and speed up the wind as claimed, but when the turbine is placed inside the ductwork it will create such high pressure that little additional air will be drawn into the device, making it a poor alternative to conventional turbine designs.
SheerWind completed it’s first large scale prototype earlier this month. CEO Daryoush Allaei says initial testing without the turbine resulted in a near doubling of wind speed passing through the device as predicted in prior modeling. Allaei says they will now install the turbine and begin monitoring power output.
Duluth motorcycle clothing maker's socials boost visibility
The first was to park his Honda Gold Wing next to a nondescript, three-story brick factory building in Duluth's Lincoln Park, walk inside and try on some made-only-in-Duluth Aerostich gear.
"I've got myself in a situation now where I can afford better stuff," said Ramker, 47, who is married and has a daughter in college. "And I'm sick of things leaking. I ride in all sorts of inclement weather. Most riders will pull over to a wayside and wait it out. I ride through it, and I'm sick of being wet."
So Ramker turned to Aerostich, the gear made by Aero Design and Manufacturing. Andy Goldfine established the company nearly 30 years ago in a former candy factory at Superior Street and 18th Avenue West to design and manufacture fine-quality, waterproof textile riding gear for motorcyclists.
"At the time Andy started riding, he wanted to be able to use his bike and ride it as a transportation tool," said Lynn Wisneski, sales and business development director, who started with the company 22 years ago. "And there was nothing at the time that you could ride in to protect you from the rain or from falling. The suits that Andy designed were the first textile rider suits in the world."
Over almost three decades, the Aerostich brand has developed a worldwide following among passionate motorcyclists, Wisneski said. On Saturday, a customer from Texas was expected to arrive to be fitted for a rider suit. Early in her career, a couple from Norway arrived at the factory. The gear has made frequent appearances on the covers of motorcycling magazines.
Aero Design is making efforts to increase its visibility in the Northland. Among them are the "Saturday Motorcycle Socials" at the factory store on the first three Saturdays in December.
Another is a remodeling project that is transforming the entire first floor into retail space.
Already, all of the design, sewing and production take place on the second and third floors. The factory usually is open five days a week, but several employees were working on Saturday to keep up with the Christmas rush. Among them was one man working at the factory's new robotic garment-cutting machine, which Wisneski said has allowed Aero Design to greatly speed production and add a line of rider suits specifically designed for women.
The company has a work force of 60, Wisneski said, down from 113 at its pre-recession height. But the recession allowed the company to rethink what it was doing, she said. Among other things, the company has learned to use social networking as a marketing tool. And it has worked with a team of senior engineering students from the University of Minnesota Duluth to make the manufacturing process more efficient.
The expanded retail outlet is only a small part the company's strategy. Wisneski said Aerostich will remain primarily a mail-order business. But some customers, like Ramker, make the trip to Duluth to be professionally fitted for their garment, or just to rub shoulders with the people who design and make their gear.
Wisneski said Aerostich gets letters testifying about crashes in which the rider was uninjured, or only slightly injured, while wearing the company's gear. A hall is lined with suits that went through crashes. In one of them, the rider was traveling 65 mph when he spilled on dry pavement, slid and tumbled. He was able to ride away from the scene with bruises on his hands and a twisted knee, she said.
Ramker had a similar adventure in his own Aerostich gear years ago, he said, and back then he couldn't afford to replace the suit. The pants purchased on Saturday mark his return to the company's gear, and were the only thing he wanted for a certain holiday."Merry Christmas to me," he said.
"I've got myself in a situation now where I can afford better stuff," said Ramker, 47, who is married and has a daughter in college. "And I'm sick of things leaking. I ride in all sorts of inclement weather. Most riders will pull over to a wayside and wait it out. I ride through it, and I'm sick of being wet."
So Ramker turned to Aerostich, the gear made by Aero Design and Manufacturing. Andy Goldfine established the company nearly 30 years ago in a former candy factory at Superior Street and 18th Avenue West to design and manufacture fine-quality, waterproof textile riding gear for motorcyclists.
"At the time Andy started riding, he wanted to be able to use his bike and ride it as a transportation tool," said Lynn Wisneski, sales and business development director, who started with the company 22 years ago. "And there was nothing at the time that you could ride in to protect you from the rain or from falling. The suits that Andy designed were the first textile rider suits in the world."
Over almost three decades, the Aerostich brand has developed a worldwide following among passionate motorcyclists, Wisneski said. On Saturday, a customer from Texas was expected to arrive to be fitted for a rider suit. Early in her career, a couple from Norway arrived at the factory. The gear has made frequent appearances on the covers of motorcycling magazines.
Aero Design is making efforts to increase its visibility in the Northland. Among them are the "Saturday Motorcycle Socials" at the factory store on the first three Saturdays in December.
Another is a remodeling project that is transforming the entire first floor into retail space.
Already, all of the design, sewing and production take place on the second and third floors. The factory usually is open five days a week, but several employees were working on Saturday to keep up with the Christmas rush. Among them was one man working at the factory's new robotic garment-cutting machine, which Wisneski said has allowed Aero Design to greatly speed production and add a line of rider suits specifically designed for women.
The company has a work force of 60, Wisneski said, down from 113 at its pre-recession height. But the recession allowed the company to rethink what it was doing, she said. Among other things, the company has learned to use social networking as a marketing tool. And it has worked with a team of senior engineering students from the University of Minnesota Duluth to make the manufacturing process more efficient.
The expanded retail outlet is only a small part the company's strategy. Wisneski said Aerostich will remain primarily a mail-order business. But some customers, like Ramker, make the trip to Duluth to be professionally fitted for their garment, or just to rub shoulders with the people who design and make their gear.
Wisneski said Aerostich gets letters testifying about crashes in which the rider was uninjured, or only slightly injured, while wearing the company's gear. A hall is lined with suits that went through crashes. In one of them, the rider was traveling 65 mph when he spilled on dry pavement, slid and tumbled. He was able to ride away from the scene with bruises on his hands and a twisted knee, she said.
Ramker had a similar adventure in his own Aerostich gear years ago, he said, and back then he couldn't afford to replace the suit. The pants purchased on Saturday mark his return to the company's gear, and were the only thing he wanted for a certain holiday."Merry Christmas to me," he said.
2012年11月28日 星期三
Government Committed to Energy Diversification
State Minister for Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Hon. Julian Robinson, has re-emphasised the Government’s commitment to energy diversification and conservation, noting that money saved on energy can be injected into the economy.
Speaking at a stakeholder workshop, hosted by the Ministry, in collaboration with Worldwatch Institute, at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston on November 27, the State Minister told participants that, “we are committed to having 30 per cent of our energy mix from renewable sources by the year 2030."
“We are also examining other fuel sources…the LNG project is on the way; the government’s role has changed, but we are committed to having LNG in the country hopefully by 2015, and the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) is building a 360 megawatt plant in Old Harbour.”
He further informed that the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) on November 26, issued a request for proposal for 115 megawatts of renewable energy, and that the first net billing customer has been connected.
Net billing allows JPS customers who own renewable energy generators, such as wind turbines and photovoltaic (solar) systems, to generate electricity for personal use, as well as sell excess energy to the light and power company at wholesale prices set by the OUR.
“We are also committed to conservation, and we have a project where we hope to achieve a 30 per cent cost savings in public sector energy conservation over a three-year period,” he stated, pointing out that as part of the project, there is an affirmative action policy in place for procurement, whereby any local company which has a bid that is within 15 per cent of an overseas company, will be awarded these contracts.
“We believe we must develop local capacity and we must develop the expertise to solve our own challenges here,” Mr. Robinson said, adding that, “if we are able to successfully adopt these strategies, we can bring the cost of electricity down significantly.”
Worldwatch is designing a low carbon energy roadmap for the Ministry, which will allow for better harnessing of renewable energy sources; provide solid socio-economic data; and provide recommendations that decision makers can execute to bring about a more sustainable energy future for the country.
A Washington DC-based globally focused environmental research organisation, Worldwatch helps to inform policymakers and the public about the complex links between the world economy and its environmental support systems. One of its main objectives is universal access to renewable energy.
Loyd showed that by flying a tethered wing back and forth across the wind, you could get considerably more power than you could from a kite that just hovered in one spot. According to Loyd’s calculations, if you used a wing as big as the one on a Lockheed C-5A military transport (68 meters long), you could, at least in principle, extract a few megawatts from a 10-meter-per-second wind. That’s comparable to what you might get from the biggest of modern wind turbines.
Loyd considered two ways to get electrical energy out of a tethered wing. One is to outfit the wing itself with propeller-like turbine blades that generate power as it zooms through the air. That power would then be sent down an electrically conductive tether. This is now known as the flying-generator, or “flygen,” approach. The other technique he considered was to exploit the force that the wing exerts on its tether to generate electricity using equipment on the ground.
Loyd’s analysis didn’t examine yet another possibility: to generate electricity using turbine blades that serve as both lifting surfaces and energy-harvesting devices. That’s the technique Australian engineer Bryan Roberts began experimenting with in 1979—something he calls a gyromill, which he continues to work on with California-based Sky Windpower.
Speaking at a stakeholder workshop, hosted by the Ministry, in collaboration with Worldwatch Institute, at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston on November 27, the State Minister told participants that, “we are committed to having 30 per cent of our energy mix from renewable sources by the year 2030."
“We are also examining other fuel sources…the LNG project is on the way; the government’s role has changed, but we are committed to having LNG in the country hopefully by 2015, and the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) is building a 360 megawatt plant in Old Harbour.”
He further informed that the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) on November 26, issued a request for proposal for 115 megawatts of renewable energy, and that the first net billing customer has been connected.
Net billing allows JPS customers who own renewable energy generators, such as wind turbines and photovoltaic (solar) systems, to generate electricity for personal use, as well as sell excess energy to the light and power company at wholesale prices set by the OUR.
“We are also committed to conservation, and we have a project where we hope to achieve a 30 per cent cost savings in public sector energy conservation over a three-year period,” he stated, pointing out that as part of the project, there is an affirmative action policy in place for procurement, whereby any local company which has a bid that is within 15 per cent of an overseas company, will be awarded these contracts.
“We believe we must develop local capacity and we must develop the expertise to solve our own challenges here,” Mr. Robinson said, adding that, “if we are able to successfully adopt these strategies, we can bring the cost of electricity down significantly.”
Worldwatch is designing a low carbon energy roadmap for the Ministry, which will allow for better harnessing of renewable energy sources; provide solid socio-economic data; and provide recommendations that decision makers can execute to bring about a more sustainable energy future for the country.
A Washington DC-based globally focused environmental research organisation, Worldwatch helps to inform policymakers and the public about the complex links between the world economy and its environmental support systems. One of its main objectives is universal access to renewable energy.
Loyd showed that by flying a tethered wing back and forth across the wind, you could get considerably more power than you could from a kite that just hovered in one spot. According to Loyd’s calculations, if you used a wing as big as the one on a Lockheed C-5A military transport (68 meters long), you could, at least in principle, extract a few megawatts from a 10-meter-per-second wind. That’s comparable to what you might get from the biggest of modern wind turbines.
Loyd considered two ways to get electrical energy out of a tethered wing. One is to outfit the wing itself with propeller-like turbine blades that generate power as it zooms through the air. That power would then be sent down an electrically conductive tether. This is now known as the flying-generator, or “flygen,” approach. The other technique he considered was to exploit the force that the wing exerts on its tether to generate electricity using equipment on the ground.
Loyd’s analysis didn’t examine yet another possibility: to generate electricity using turbine blades that serve as both lifting surfaces and energy-harvesting devices. That’s the technique Australian engineer Bryan Roberts began experimenting with in 1979—something he calls a gyromill, which he continues to work on with California-based Sky Windpower.
2012年11月27日 星期二
GET Group Opens Washington, D.C. Office
Global Enterprise Technologies Corp., a provider of cutting-edge passport and ID systems globally, today announced the opening of its new office in Washington, D.C. The new location will support GET Group's growing passport and ID business with the federal government, as well as provide technical support and sales contact convenience for government agencies and their contractors. GET Group is the worldwide exclusive distributor of Toppan Printing Co. Ltd.'s cutting-edge security passport printing technology.
For nearly two decades, the United States' Department of State Passport Services has utilized GET/Toppan passport printing solutions. This experience complements GET Group's record of delivering highly-secure government IDs and passports worldwide. To more easily support GET Group's rapidly expanding business, the new Washington, D.C. office will provide opportunities for local printing demonstrations and enable on-demand delivery and maintenance for federal agencies with mission-critical identification and access control requirements that must be implemented with extremely quick turnaround times.
"For years, governments around the world have trusted GET Group to deliver the highest-quality, most secure identification printing technology available," said Alex Kambanis, president and CEO of Global Enterprise Technologies Corp. "Our new office in Washington, D.C. will make it easier to deliver the same level of service and support at an increased volume as demand for highly secure card printing solutions for government agency applications increases."
GET Group's printing technology is ideal for highly secure government environments, with security features that include a tamper-evident seal to protect against image or data alteration, as well as the ability to incorporate holograms, barcodes, micro-text, and other features to enhance security. The company's solutions are also trusted for mission-critical identification challenges in other high-security commercial environments, including pharmaceuticals, healthcare, transportation, travel and leisure, higher education and campus security, and more.
Attendees of the 11th Annual Smart Card Alliance Government Conference in Washington, D.C. can learn more about the new office and also view GET Group's CP500 card printer, the eP600 passport printer, and the CLM-20 laser engraver by visiting booth 506.
Applied Laser Engineering delivered the 4.5m laser system to the company’s Dukinfield, Cheshire plant earlier in the month.
The anilox roller manufacturer brought in the 450,000 system to boost productivity in response to increased demand. Cheshire Anilox Technology mainly produces anilox rollers for use in flexographic presses but demand from Heidelberg and KBA litho machines has increased orders recently.
Cheshire Anilox Technology technical sales director Sonia Arcos said: "Litho presses used to use anilox rollers only for priming and varnishing but the release of the Anicolour, which uses eight anilox rollers, and the KBA 74 has meant that we have had higher demand from the offset market."
She expects that the manufacturers have opted for anilox rollers in the mentioned machines as it is easier to control the amount of ink being used and hence proves to be a cost effective method of printing.
Arcos predicted that the new system will boost capacity by 30% and enable the company to create "limitless" bespoke cell designs on the ceramic rollers.
For nearly two decades, the United States' Department of State Passport Services has utilized GET/Toppan passport printing solutions. This experience complements GET Group's record of delivering highly-secure government IDs and passports worldwide. To more easily support GET Group's rapidly expanding business, the new Washington, D.C. office will provide opportunities for local printing demonstrations and enable on-demand delivery and maintenance for federal agencies with mission-critical identification and access control requirements that must be implemented with extremely quick turnaround times.
"For years, governments around the world have trusted GET Group to deliver the highest-quality, most secure identification printing technology available," said Alex Kambanis, president and CEO of Global Enterprise Technologies Corp. "Our new office in Washington, D.C. will make it easier to deliver the same level of service and support at an increased volume as demand for highly secure card printing solutions for government agency applications increases."
GET Group's printing technology is ideal for highly secure government environments, with security features that include a tamper-evident seal to protect against image or data alteration, as well as the ability to incorporate holograms, barcodes, micro-text, and other features to enhance security. The company's solutions are also trusted for mission-critical identification challenges in other high-security commercial environments, including pharmaceuticals, healthcare, transportation, travel and leisure, higher education and campus security, and more.
Attendees of the 11th Annual Smart Card Alliance Government Conference in Washington, D.C. can learn more about the new office and also view GET Group's CP500 card printer, the eP600 passport printer, and the CLM-20 laser engraver by visiting booth 506.
Applied Laser Engineering delivered the 4.5m laser system to the company’s Dukinfield, Cheshire plant earlier in the month.
The anilox roller manufacturer brought in the 450,000 system to boost productivity in response to increased demand. Cheshire Anilox Technology mainly produces anilox rollers for use in flexographic presses but demand from Heidelberg and KBA litho machines has increased orders recently.
Cheshire Anilox Technology technical sales director Sonia Arcos said: "Litho presses used to use anilox rollers only for priming and varnishing but the release of the Anicolour, which uses eight anilox rollers, and the KBA 74 has meant that we have had higher demand from the offset market."
She expects that the manufacturers have opted for anilox rollers in the mentioned machines as it is easier to control the amount of ink being used and hence proves to be a cost effective method of printing.
Arcos predicted that the new system will boost capacity by 30% and enable the company to create "limitless" bespoke cell designs on the ceramic rollers.
2012年11月26日 星期一
New firearms maker opens high-tech facility
When it comes to high-end weapons, there's a new company in town that's changing the way people think about rifles.
Founded in 2010, Proof Research of Kalispell specializes in creating lightweight, accurate weapons using carbon-fiber barrels and stocks unlike anything else on the market.
“Large gun manufacturers know we have the technology and we're being courted by some big names,” said Pat Rainey, chief executive officer of Proof Research. “We've changed the gun industry, just like the polymer pistol did. The cool factor of our weapons is off the page.”
While Proof Research may only be two years old, it is made up of four companies that have years of rifle-making experience, according to Rainey. Proof is actually a merger of Lone Wolf Riflestocks of Kalispell, Jense Fabrication of Missoula, ABS out of Lincoln, Neb., and Lawrence Rifle Barrels of Lewistown.
“Lots of people have tried to do this for many years,” Rainey said. “The idea of a carbon-fiber barrel has been around for 20 years. We're just the first to crack the code.”
Although only one of the core companies was from the Kalispell area, lead investor Mike Goguen said it made sense to locate Proof in the Flathead Valley.
“The Montana work ethic and quality is outstanding,” Goguen said. “When you look at firearms, so many of the parts in the best ones, the ones I really admire, come from Montana, from small, mom-and-pop places that maybe don't have the capital to go big. So it made sense to take advantage of that. There are a lot of really amazing craftsmen here, and we have the opportunity to bring them together.”
Goguen said he became involved in Proof while looking for a lightweight hunting rifle, and got more than he bargained for when his custom rifle was finished.
“I love Montana, I love hunting and guns, and I love technology and small businesses, and this checked all the boxes,” he said. “I was skeptical at first, but they built me a gun, and I fell in love with it and just had to be a part of what they were building.”
In addition to folding several manufacturers under the Proof umbrella, Goguen said the company still contracts out certain parts, such as trigger assembly and receivers, to local companies such as Defiance Machine.
Although the company had been producing weapons and courting larger contracts for the two years since its founding, Rainey said the owners and investors were very careful about making sure the business was strong before opening its doors to the public.
“We wanted to build a strong foundation first,” Rainey said. “We wanted to have everything in place, so when we opened, we could have that strong start we wanted. We're in it for the long haul, and we don't have to race to target our market. The market is coming to us, so we could take the time to do it right, right from the beginning.”
Currently Proof employs 29 employees, and Rainey said the company still is hiring. Goguen said there is great potential for job growth.
“One of the things we're doing is partnering with Flathead Valley Community College to get some of those trade skills we need, like CNC [computer numerical control] machinists,” Rainey said. “We've got ads in the paper now, and we are getting people from all over.”
“It's a slow, measured growth that we're aiming for; we've got a tight budget and we have faced challenges every single day, but we're overcoming them,” Rainey said.
The barrels Proof manufactures are not completely made of carbon fiber, rather they are traditional steel cores, machined down and wrapped with carbon fibers. According to Rainey, this results in a lighter-weight, more effective barrel of the same or similar overall dimensions and strength as more traditional all-steel barrels.
Although the technology for carbon-fiber barrels may have been around for the last 20 years, the big problem to overcome was failure due to heat.
In a typical rifle, the heat of extended firing will cause the barrel to warp slightly, and this can lead to a “fairly large” dispersion pattern. This means that what started out as shots in a dime-sized grouping on a target can expand to shots that could completely miss the point of aim. In some weapons, like the fully automatic M249 squad automatic weapon used by the military, the heat is so detrimental that multiple barrels are carried to prevent jams and increase accuracy.
Founded in 2010, Proof Research of Kalispell specializes in creating lightweight, accurate weapons using carbon-fiber barrels and stocks unlike anything else on the market.
“Large gun manufacturers know we have the technology and we're being courted by some big names,” said Pat Rainey, chief executive officer of Proof Research. “We've changed the gun industry, just like the polymer pistol did. The cool factor of our weapons is off the page.”
While Proof Research may only be two years old, it is made up of four companies that have years of rifle-making experience, according to Rainey. Proof is actually a merger of Lone Wolf Riflestocks of Kalispell, Jense Fabrication of Missoula, ABS out of Lincoln, Neb., and Lawrence Rifle Barrels of Lewistown.
“Lots of people have tried to do this for many years,” Rainey said. “The idea of a carbon-fiber barrel has been around for 20 years. We're just the first to crack the code.”
Although only one of the core companies was from the Kalispell area, lead investor Mike Goguen said it made sense to locate Proof in the Flathead Valley.
“The Montana work ethic and quality is outstanding,” Goguen said. “When you look at firearms, so many of the parts in the best ones, the ones I really admire, come from Montana, from small, mom-and-pop places that maybe don't have the capital to go big. So it made sense to take advantage of that. There are a lot of really amazing craftsmen here, and we have the opportunity to bring them together.”
Goguen said he became involved in Proof while looking for a lightweight hunting rifle, and got more than he bargained for when his custom rifle was finished.
“I love Montana, I love hunting and guns, and I love technology and small businesses, and this checked all the boxes,” he said. “I was skeptical at first, but they built me a gun, and I fell in love with it and just had to be a part of what they were building.”
In addition to folding several manufacturers under the Proof umbrella, Goguen said the company still contracts out certain parts, such as trigger assembly and receivers, to local companies such as Defiance Machine.
Although the company had been producing weapons and courting larger contracts for the two years since its founding, Rainey said the owners and investors were very careful about making sure the business was strong before opening its doors to the public.
“We wanted to build a strong foundation first,” Rainey said. “We wanted to have everything in place, so when we opened, we could have that strong start we wanted. We're in it for the long haul, and we don't have to race to target our market. The market is coming to us, so we could take the time to do it right, right from the beginning.”
Currently Proof employs 29 employees, and Rainey said the company still is hiring. Goguen said there is great potential for job growth.
“One of the things we're doing is partnering with Flathead Valley Community College to get some of those trade skills we need, like CNC [computer numerical control] machinists,” Rainey said. “We've got ads in the paper now, and we are getting people from all over.”
“It's a slow, measured growth that we're aiming for; we've got a tight budget and we have faced challenges every single day, but we're overcoming them,” Rainey said.
The barrels Proof manufactures are not completely made of carbon fiber, rather they are traditional steel cores, machined down and wrapped with carbon fibers. According to Rainey, this results in a lighter-weight, more effective barrel of the same or similar overall dimensions and strength as more traditional all-steel barrels.
Although the technology for carbon-fiber barrels may have been around for the last 20 years, the big problem to overcome was failure due to heat.
In a typical rifle, the heat of extended firing will cause the barrel to warp slightly, and this can lead to a “fairly large” dispersion pattern. This means that what started out as shots in a dime-sized grouping on a target can expand to shots that could completely miss the point of aim. In some weapons, like the fully automatic M249 squad automatic weapon used by the military, the heat is so detrimental that multiple barrels are carried to prevent jams and increase accuracy.
2012年11月20日 星期二
Thieves go on coffee-machine binge at Nanaimo Starbucks outlets
Six coffee machines were stolen from three different Nanaimo-area Starbucks locations on Friday, highlighting how thefts increase as the holidays draw near.
The thefts happened at the Terminal Park, University Mall and Country Club locations and in two of the cases a man was seen picking up the machines and walking out with them.
RCMP Media spokesman Gary O'Brien said that he estimates the items were likely sold on the street at a reduced value for drug money.
Incidents of shoplifting and theft begin to increase following Thanksgiving and go up from there, said O'Brien, who actively works with stores on their theft-prevention strategies.
He spoke with Starbucks management on Monday and said that they will be using a demo model for public display from now on.
Theft risks to the public are also on the rise at this time of year, said O'Brien.
Starbucks representatives were unavailable for comment on the thefts.
"There's a lot of pressure," said O'Brien about people's increased financial strain during the holidays.
"People involved in criminal activity also want to provide for their families."
There's "absolutely" more theft at this time of year, said Dave Paulgaard, who provides security services for the Country Club and Woodgrove shopping centres.
He said they encourage people to notify store managers or mall security if they see a person shoplifting, because for any charges to be laid, there has to be eyewitnesses.
"If they're noted shoplifters, I just go shopping with them," he said with a chuckle.
The items in the Starbucks locations were on public display. This is a factor both store theft and in theft of personal items, which also increase at this time of year, said O'Brien
"You get a lot of theft from parking lots because people are just flocking to the malls," said O'Brien.
It's "very common" for thieves work the parking lots by sitting in their cars and watching people entering and exiting stores.
Items commonly stolen from cars are purses and more expensive "high-ticket" items, said O'Brien.
Advice from the RCMP to shoppers is to hide items in the car and make sure the trunk latch is securely locked.
No arrests have been made in the coffee-machine thefts and each incident remains under investigation.
GE Appliances is investing $60 million in new high-efficiency washing machine facility and product, creating 150 new jobs and supporting about 40 domestic suppliers.
The popularity of the high efficiency washing technology has driven more innovation and investment in top load washing machine category.
"There is 150 people on this line that wouldn't have had a job if this product didn't come to GE," said Anitra Wiggins.
The new machine uses an impeller instead of an agitator which allows then to use less water and energy than a traditional washer.
For many of the employees at Appliance Park, the new washing machine means job security.
"Anything coming back to Louisville coming back to appliance park means jobs means jobs for the city," said GE employee Nathan Hall.
Production on the new washer began six weeks ago and they started shipping them out last week. The jobs surrounding the new product have already been filled.
Production also began this year on a new hybrid water heater facility, with plans to upgrade all product lines and facilities including the bottom freezer refrigerator and front load washing machines.
The thefts happened at the Terminal Park, University Mall and Country Club locations and in two of the cases a man was seen picking up the machines and walking out with them.
RCMP Media spokesman Gary O'Brien said that he estimates the items were likely sold on the street at a reduced value for drug money.
Incidents of shoplifting and theft begin to increase following Thanksgiving and go up from there, said O'Brien, who actively works with stores on their theft-prevention strategies.
He spoke with Starbucks management on Monday and said that they will be using a demo model for public display from now on.
Theft risks to the public are also on the rise at this time of year, said O'Brien.
Starbucks representatives were unavailable for comment on the thefts.
"There's a lot of pressure," said O'Brien about people's increased financial strain during the holidays.
"People involved in criminal activity also want to provide for their families."
There's "absolutely" more theft at this time of year, said Dave Paulgaard, who provides security services for the Country Club and Woodgrove shopping centres.
He said they encourage people to notify store managers or mall security if they see a person shoplifting, because for any charges to be laid, there has to be eyewitnesses.
"If they're noted shoplifters, I just go shopping with them," he said with a chuckle.
The items in the Starbucks locations were on public display. This is a factor both store theft and in theft of personal items, which also increase at this time of year, said O'Brien
"You get a lot of theft from parking lots because people are just flocking to the malls," said O'Brien.
It's "very common" for thieves work the parking lots by sitting in their cars and watching people entering and exiting stores.
Items commonly stolen from cars are purses and more expensive "high-ticket" items, said O'Brien.
Advice from the RCMP to shoppers is to hide items in the car and make sure the trunk latch is securely locked.
No arrests have been made in the coffee-machine thefts and each incident remains under investigation.
GE Appliances is investing $60 million in new high-efficiency washing machine facility and product, creating 150 new jobs and supporting about 40 domestic suppliers.
The popularity of the high efficiency washing technology has driven more innovation and investment in top load washing machine category.
"There is 150 people on this line that wouldn't have had a job if this product didn't come to GE," said Anitra Wiggins.
The new machine uses an impeller instead of an agitator which allows then to use less water and energy than a traditional washer.
For many of the employees at Appliance Park, the new washing machine means job security.
"Anything coming back to Louisville coming back to appliance park means jobs means jobs for the city," said GE employee Nathan Hall.
Production on the new washer began six weeks ago and they started shipping them out last week. The jobs surrounding the new product have already been filled.
Production also began this year on a new hybrid water heater facility, with plans to upgrade all product lines and facilities including the bottom freezer refrigerator and front load washing machines.
2012年11月19日 星期一
BTM Cuts Offshore Wind Forecast on German Grid
Global offshore wind turbine installations are expected to grow more slowly than previously expected because of grid delays in Germany and the price of wind power in Sweden, according to Navigant Consulting Inc.
Navigant’s BTM Consult ApS unit cut its cumulative forecast for the five years through to 2016 by 11.6 percent to 23.9 gigawatts of offshore turbines, the company said in an e-mailed report. The largest downgrade of 1,700 megawatts was in Germany.
“Germany has been downgraded despite a huge pipeline of offshore projects in German waters as there is concern in the wind industry over grid availability and grid delays,” Aris Karcanias, an analyst at BTM Consult.
Developers of offshore wind including Dong Energy A/S and EnbW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG suspended projects in Germany on a lack of grid connection agreements, hampering the nation’s goal to build 25 gigawatts of turbines by 2030. The German government endorsed draft legislation in August designed to end delays and provide investor security by making grid operators accountable for financial damage.
Those penalties and high upfront costs will impact future developments, Karcanias said. He also reduced his forecast because Sweden’s incentive program for offshore wind doesn’t deliver a power price “sufficiently attractive to lure investors” when the cost of cable connections paid for by the project owner in Sweden are factored in.
BTM Consult also said the cost of some new European projects increased to more than 4 million euros a megawatt, “which is 1.5 times to more than double the cost of early large scale European and Chinese offshore projects.”
The costs, pushed up as turbines are built further from shore in deep water and more difficult conditions, will begin to fall as new technologies and installation methods are introduced, according to Karcanias.
Europe will lead in offshore turbines to 2016 with Asia accounting for 25 percent, BTM Consult said. It predicts China, the U.K. and Germany will be the three largest offshore wind markets by the end of 2021.
“We congratulate GE on this impressive achievement,” said Jim Shield, Invenergy’s executive vice president and chief development officer. “Our longstanding association has resulted in the installation of more than 2,000 GE wind turbines at Invenergy projects across the United States. As America’s largest independent wind power generation company, we look forward to a continued, successful relationship with GE in the years to come.”
“Congratulations to GE on reaching this milestone. From our vantage point, it appears to be the culmination of working with customers, driving down prices, continuously advancing technology and then backing it all up with responsive service,” said David Boyce, chief executive officer of Wind Capital Group. “I would expect that winning combination to serve them well into the future.”
There does not appear to be any mention of just where the 20,000th turbine was installed, but given that “more than 70 percent of GE’s wind turbine deals so far this year have been overseas” (GE General Manager Matt Guyette in a recent interview), it could very literally be anywhere throughout Europe, Asia, or North America.
Navigant’s BTM Consult ApS unit cut its cumulative forecast for the five years through to 2016 by 11.6 percent to 23.9 gigawatts of offshore turbines, the company said in an e-mailed report. The largest downgrade of 1,700 megawatts was in Germany.
“Germany has been downgraded despite a huge pipeline of offshore projects in German waters as there is concern in the wind industry over grid availability and grid delays,” Aris Karcanias, an analyst at BTM Consult.
Developers of offshore wind including Dong Energy A/S and EnbW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG suspended projects in Germany on a lack of grid connection agreements, hampering the nation’s goal to build 25 gigawatts of turbines by 2030. The German government endorsed draft legislation in August designed to end delays and provide investor security by making grid operators accountable for financial damage.
Those penalties and high upfront costs will impact future developments, Karcanias said. He also reduced his forecast because Sweden’s incentive program for offshore wind doesn’t deliver a power price “sufficiently attractive to lure investors” when the cost of cable connections paid for by the project owner in Sweden are factored in.
BTM Consult also said the cost of some new European projects increased to more than 4 million euros a megawatt, “which is 1.5 times to more than double the cost of early large scale European and Chinese offshore projects.”
The costs, pushed up as turbines are built further from shore in deep water and more difficult conditions, will begin to fall as new technologies and installation methods are introduced, according to Karcanias.
Europe will lead in offshore turbines to 2016 with Asia accounting for 25 percent, BTM Consult said. It predicts China, the U.K. and Germany will be the three largest offshore wind markets by the end of 2021.
“We congratulate GE on this impressive achievement,” said Jim Shield, Invenergy’s executive vice president and chief development officer. “Our longstanding association has resulted in the installation of more than 2,000 GE wind turbines at Invenergy projects across the United States. As America’s largest independent wind power generation company, we look forward to a continued, successful relationship with GE in the years to come.”
“Congratulations to GE on reaching this milestone. From our vantage point, it appears to be the culmination of working with customers, driving down prices, continuously advancing technology and then backing it all up with responsive service,” said David Boyce, chief executive officer of Wind Capital Group. “I would expect that winning combination to serve them well into the future.”
There does not appear to be any mention of just where the 20,000th turbine was installed, but given that “more than 70 percent of GE’s wind turbine deals so far this year have been overseas” (GE General Manager Matt Guyette in a recent interview), it could very literally be anywhere throughout Europe, Asia, or North America.
2012年11月18日 星期日
Keep your shoulder to the wheel and keep on trucking
'We definitely have to fight harder than ever. There's a greater emphasis on quality and people are rightfully looking for value for money.'
According to former American baseball player, Sam Ewing: "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."
Fred Clarke is one man who has never been afraid to roll up his sleeves. His is an inspiring story that demonstrates what can be achieved through hard work, resilience and an enterprising mindset. This week I travelled to Bailieborough, in Co Cavan, to meet Fred and to learn about Agrigear, the company he set up 32 years ago.
Agrigear is one of the largest wholesale suppliers of tyres and wheels in Ireland. As Fred gives me a tour of the place, I am amazed to see the sheer volume of tyres and wheels that fill the company's premises and the expansive concrete yards that surround it.
There are tyres to suit every type of car and truck as well as for every sort of farm, construction and grass-cutting machine imaginable.
"Even when I was at school, I was always more interested in making or fixing things than doing homework," laughs Fred.
He went straight into farming after school and, in order to expand, he began to rent additional land. At one stage he had more than 1,000 acres rented on which he grew barley and wheat as well as milling grain for himself and others.
While still farming, he set up a contract building company erecting silage pits and grain stores for other farmers. It was the mid-Seventies and Fred was employing about 30 people.
He then decided to diversify even further and, along with two other business partners, built a 600-unit piggery. During 1978 and 1980, economic conditions worsened. Diesel prices rose dramatically and interest rates soared a staggering 23 per cent.
To add further to his troubles, bad weather meant that Fred experienced a poor yield from his crops during those years, culminating in serious financial losses.
In the summer of 1980 he went to Holland to visit a business contact who shared his interest in machinery. While there, the two men visited a local car-dismantling business and before he knew it, Fred had bought 1,200 good quality second-hand wheels and tyres.
It was an act of kindness Fred never forgot. Word spread and, when his stock sold out, he began travelling to Holland every month to buy more. His tyre business had taken off.
Some of the tyres he imported did not readily fit standard European-sized wheels and so he began to manufacture new wheels.
"That was the start of the manufacturing end of our business," says Fred. "And it represents almost one-third of our business today."
During the mid Eighties, the weather was so bad that turf contractors were struggling to get their cutting machines to travel on waterlogged bogs. Fred discovered that, if he bolted two wheels together on each side of the machine, this would spread the weight of the machine and thereby make it less inclined to sink in the wet ground.
According to former American baseball player, Sam Ewing: "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."
Fred Clarke is one man who has never been afraid to roll up his sleeves. His is an inspiring story that demonstrates what can be achieved through hard work, resilience and an enterprising mindset. This week I travelled to Bailieborough, in Co Cavan, to meet Fred and to learn about Agrigear, the company he set up 32 years ago.
Agrigear is one of the largest wholesale suppliers of tyres and wheels in Ireland. As Fred gives me a tour of the place, I am amazed to see the sheer volume of tyres and wheels that fill the company's premises and the expansive concrete yards that surround it.
There are tyres to suit every type of car and truck as well as for every sort of farm, construction and grass-cutting machine imaginable.
"Even when I was at school, I was always more interested in making or fixing things than doing homework," laughs Fred.
He went straight into farming after school and, in order to expand, he began to rent additional land. At one stage he had more than 1,000 acres rented on which he grew barley and wheat as well as milling grain for himself and others.
While still farming, he set up a contract building company erecting silage pits and grain stores for other farmers. It was the mid-Seventies and Fred was employing about 30 people.
He then decided to diversify even further and, along with two other business partners, built a 600-unit piggery. During 1978 and 1980, economic conditions worsened. Diesel prices rose dramatically and interest rates soared a staggering 23 per cent.
To add further to his troubles, bad weather meant that Fred experienced a poor yield from his crops during those years, culminating in serious financial losses.
In the summer of 1980 he went to Holland to visit a business contact who shared his interest in machinery. While there, the two men visited a local car-dismantling business and before he knew it, Fred had bought 1,200 good quality second-hand wheels and tyres.
It was an act of kindness Fred never forgot. Word spread and, when his stock sold out, he began travelling to Holland every month to buy more. His tyre business had taken off.
Some of the tyres he imported did not readily fit standard European-sized wheels and so he began to manufacture new wheels.
"That was the start of the manufacturing end of our business," says Fred. "And it represents almost one-third of our business today."
During the mid Eighties, the weather was so bad that turf contractors were struggling to get their cutting machines to travel on waterlogged bogs. Fred discovered that, if he bolted two wheels together on each side of the machine, this would spread the weight of the machine and thereby make it less inclined to sink in the wet ground.
2012年11月15日 星期四
Hope for a dying empire?
Because to write about “non-ferrous metals equities” means you're writing about silver, gold, copper, lead and zinc miners, and they are the best. Whether they are hustling money at the annual investment conferences in Zurich, London, Toronto or Beijing I attend, standing their ground against the continued assault by the EPA on property rights in Kellogg, or drilling a heading a mile underground, they are the most unusual and most decent people I have ever met. For every charlatan who works this trade there are 1,000 others doing decent, honourable labour, and in their toils to make a living or get rich, they enrich our lives.
Do I really need to tell the silver story here in Shoshone County, the self-proclaimed silver capital of the world? (Well, maybe excluding Mexico and Bolivia, but what does a chamber of commerce care for such nuances?) We have a silver mining industry here because hustlers 120 years ago were able to raise capital to build the first mines, and we have a silver industry now because good people continue to produce silver for a wage, and promoters continue to hustle money to keep the mines going.
I find what miners do here, and what miners in Canada, China, Africa, and Central and South America do, fascinating and honourable. The purveyors of products and services, indeed our very economies stand on the shoulders of miners. It's too bad this simple fact of life, that if it can't be grown it's got to be mined, is not taught in our local schools.
You couldn't start your car without the labour of a silver miner; your fridge wouldn't run, your washing machine would quit and your computers and cell phones would be so much detritus. When the late Hank SiJohn of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe did his best ticked-off Indian routine up at the Star Mine dump to pump up support for our EPA/Superfund hegemony two decades ago, I wondered if he had ever wondered where the zinc for the bumpers on his gigantic Buick had come from. Most likely out of that mine portal he was standing below.
But this rant will not be about mining, at least not always. Nor will it always be about the EPA bumpkins who have squatted in our neck of the woods like a deranged and disagreeable relative who won't ever leave your guest room, despite numerous broad hints, and demands regular meals served in bed.
We'll leave local politics out of this conversation as well — for the most part. If you want my opinions, read the Letters to the Editor column. But I do miss our old politicians: Fred Cantamessa. George Gieser. Bill Noyen. Lou Horvath. Bill Lytle. Vern Lannen. God rest their souls. As a young reporter-slash-editor I could walk in to the county commissioners' den and get honest answers, and a lively dialogue would ensue. I remember the weekly phone hook-up at the Kellogg Chamber meeting, engineered by Ray Chapman, when Lou, Bill and Vern would fill us in on the shenanigans in Boise. I remember driving to Wallace from “up the river” and maybe killing a grouse along the way, gutting it, stuffing into a bread-sack, and keeping it cool in the county's pop machine while I walked my rounds.
I remember when there was a cigarette machine at the bottom of the county courthouse steps, instead of a signed scolding not to get near that marble facade with a fag lit within 20 paces. Heck, I'm even old enough to remember when the airlines gave you a little pack of Winston cigarettes to smoke after your in-flight meal and let every curious kid up to the cockpit to help drive those great, beastly DC-6Bs and Lockheed Connies, fueled-up with 130-octane avgas stored right underneath all those cigarette smokers, and even if you were just seven years old, you wore a tie to fly. Back then, the airlines might not let a slob onto one of their mighty liners, but they certainly wouldn't balk at a nail-clipper or a personal handgun.
Do I really need to tell the silver story here in Shoshone County, the self-proclaimed silver capital of the world? (Well, maybe excluding Mexico and Bolivia, but what does a chamber of commerce care for such nuances?) We have a silver mining industry here because hustlers 120 years ago were able to raise capital to build the first mines, and we have a silver industry now because good people continue to produce silver for a wage, and promoters continue to hustle money to keep the mines going.
I find what miners do here, and what miners in Canada, China, Africa, and Central and South America do, fascinating and honourable. The purveyors of products and services, indeed our very economies stand on the shoulders of miners. It's too bad this simple fact of life, that if it can't be grown it's got to be mined, is not taught in our local schools.
You couldn't start your car without the labour of a silver miner; your fridge wouldn't run, your washing machine would quit and your computers and cell phones would be so much detritus. When the late Hank SiJohn of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe did his best ticked-off Indian routine up at the Star Mine dump to pump up support for our EPA/Superfund hegemony two decades ago, I wondered if he had ever wondered where the zinc for the bumpers on his gigantic Buick had come from. Most likely out of that mine portal he was standing below.
But this rant will not be about mining, at least not always. Nor will it always be about the EPA bumpkins who have squatted in our neck of the woods like a deranged and disagreeable relative who won't ever leave your guest room, despite numerous broad hints, and demands regular meals served in bed.
We'll leave local politics out of this conversation as well — for the most part. If you want my opinions, read the Letters to the Editor column. But I do miss our old politicians: Fred Cantamessa. George Gieser. Bill Noyen. Lou Horvath. Bill Lytle. Vern Lannen. God rest their souls. As a young reporter-slash-editor I could walk in to the county commissioners' den and get honest answers, and a lively dialogue would ensue. I remember the weekly phone hook-up at the Kellogg Chamber meeting, engineered by Ray Chapman, when Lou, Bill and Vern would fill us in on the shenanigans in Boise. I remember driving to Wallace from “up the river” and maybe killing a grouse along the way, gutting it, stuffing into a bread-sack, and keeping it cool in the county's pop machine while I walked my rounds.
I remember when there was a cigarette machine at the bottom of the county courthouse steps, instead of a signed scolding not to get near that marble facade with a fag lit within 20 paces. Heck, I'm even old enough to remember when the airlines gave you a little pack of Winston cigarettes to smoke after your in-flight meal and let every curious kid up to the cockpit to help drive those great, beastly DC-6Bs and Lockheed Connies, fueled-up with 130-octane avgas stored right underneath all those cigarette smokers, and even if you were just seven years old, you wore a tie to fly. Back then, the airlines might not let a slob onto one of their mighty liners, but they certainly wouldn't balk at a nail-clipper or a personal handgun.
2012年11月14日 星期三
Laser cut designs combine style and technology
From a distance it looks like a giant copy machine, but the laser cutter that sits in the MakeATX workshop in an East Austin warehouse has the power to engrave and cut with a laser beam. As it slices a design into construction paper on a recent afternoon, it looks oddly similar to a tattoo machine in action. With light flickering from the tip of the laser cutter’s head, it quickly but precisely perforates the paper in the silhouette of a woman’s face. These particular designs appear as stage props in the theater production of “Ragtime” at the Zach Theatre, but as those who work with the machine know, the possibilities are endless.
Among all the ingenious projects that have been born at the artist haven that is the Pump Project Satellite, perhaps none are as unique as those created at the member-based digital fabrication workshop MakeATX. It’s there where clever folks get to play with lasers—well, actually, the workshop’s laser cutter that’s lovingly been named Patty Princess of Power.
With the laser cutter machine’s multifunctions, MakeATX members are constantly discovering new ways to create everything from wall art and jewelry to teaching aids.
A strong do-it-yourself movement coupled with a growing popularity of digitally driven design tools means we’re in the midst of an exciting new era for the next generation of fabricators who from a desktop can control the making of their creations.
So it’s no wonder when MakeATX co-owners Kristen von Minden and Eve Trester-Wilson opened their member-based digital fabrication workshop a year ago that word quickly spread among Austin’s creative circles. By making the software, computers and laser cutter publicly available, MakeATX brought technology and art together and made manufacturing more accessible for Austin hobbyists and artists alike.
Nationally, digital manufacturing is growing with more fabrication workshops similar to MakeATX popping up. With the way innovation is heading in this area, it might not be long until fabrication machines are affordable to many of us.
But for now von Minden and Trester-Wilson know they are on the verge of something special. They see it every day in their workshop and in all the projects they and their group of about 20 members make. In addition to memberships, they also design their own products and offer custom laser cutting.
MakeATX originally grew out of a funny email exchange between the friends and former colleagues. After von Minden graduated from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, she asked Trester-Wilson about architectural-related job prospects in Austin.
“Yeah, job prospects aren’t so good,” Trester-Wilson wrote in June 2010. “What if we start our own firm? Maybe we should buy a laser cutter?” A startled but excited von Minden started dreaming of the possibilities.
As trained architects, both women were familiar with laser cutting technology, which operates a lot like a desktop printer, von Minden says, except that it “prints” with a laser beam. Using graphics software, digital images can be sent to the laser cutter. But at MakeATX, they convert hand-drawn images as well.
Among all the ingenious projects that have been born at the artist haven that is the Pump Project Satellite, perhaps none are as unique as those created at the member-based digital fabrication workshop MakeATX. It’s there where clever folks get to play with lasers—well, actually, the workshop’s laser cutter that’s lovingly been named Patty Princess of Power.
With the laser cutter machine’s multifunctions, MakeATX members are constantly discovering new ways to create everything from wall art and jewelry to teaching aids.
A strong do-it-yourself movement coupled with a growing popularity of digitally driven design tools means we’re in the midst of an exciting new era for the next generation of fabricators who from a desktop can control the making of their creations.
So it’s no wonder when MakeATX co-owners Kristen von Minden and Eve Trester-Wilson opened their member-based digital fabrication workshop a year ago that word quickly spread among Austin’s creative circles. By making the software, computers and laser cutter publicly available, MakeATX brought technology and art together and made manufacturing more accessible for Austin hobbyists and artists alike.
Nationally, digital manufacturing is growing with more fabrication workshops similar to MakeATX popping up. With the way innovation is heading in this area, it might not be long until fabrication machines are affordable to many of us.
But for now von Minden and Trester-Wilson know they are on the verge of something special. They see it every day in their workshop and in all the projects they and their group of about 20 members make. In addition to memberships, they also design their own products and offer custom laser cutting.
MakeATX originally grew out of a funny email exchange between the friends and former colleagues. After von Minden graduated from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, she asked Trester-Wilson about architectural-related job prospects in Austin.
“Yeah, job prospects aren’t so good,” Trester-Wilson wrote in June 2010. “What if we start our own firm? Maybe we should buy a laser cutter?” A startled but excited von Minden started dreaming of the possibilities.
As trained architects, both women were familiar with laser cutting technology, which operates a lot like a desktop printer, von Minden says, except that it “prints” with a laser beam. Using graphics software, digital images can be sent to the laser cutter. But at MakeATX, they convert hand-drawn images as well.
2012年11月13日 星期二
Burlington retiree helps New Jersey recover
The three mobile kitchens, capable of churning out 80,000 meals a day, were placed at Rutgers University in Piscataway, N.J.; Toms River, N.J.; and Atlantic City. Additionally, personnel working in recovery, administration, and chaplaincy arrived to help the devastated area.
Bobby Finley, who retired four years ago after working as safety officer in Burlington and Chapel Hill, was the site safety officer for the relief effort at Toms River. Finley, who joined the NCBM Disaster Relief just a few months after his retirement, arrived in Toms River at 11 p.m. on Nov. 1. The rest of the volunteers, totaling 39 men and women, arrived by 4 a.m. on Nov. 2. After only getting a few hours of sleep, the team assembled equipment and began cooking.
Toms River was the home of the NCBM Disaster Relief Feeding Unit No. 3, which is able to serve 20,000 hot meals a day.
“The Red Cross provides the food, Baptist men cook the food,” Finley said. “We serve the food to people that either walk in to the feeding site, or drive their cars there and we simple have a drive-through lane; you drive up and tell us how many meals you need, and we stick it in the window.”
Finley said there are also Red Cross vehicles that load up meals from the mobile kitchen and drive them into rural areas.
The recovery trailer at Toms River contained large amounts of equipment such as chainsaws and other gear to clean up the disaster area. Most of the volunteers there were from the Asheville area. Finley, at 71, was one of the younger volunteers, with the oldest being an 84-year-old man. Finley was the only volunteer from the First Baptist Church in Burlington.
“I think one of the things that grabbed me the most was while I was at the Red Cross emergency shelter … I saw a group coming down the hallway. It was a volunteer, in front of a line of people … like a train coming down the hallway, and each one had his or her hand on the shoulders of the person in front. They were blind. And they were being led to the restroom. The only way they could get them all there with the limited number of volunteers they had, was a volunteer with the first person in line, backing up, leading this line of blind people who couldn’t see where they were, probably didn’t even understand some of what was going on around them.”
In the week he was in New Jersey, NCBM had worked 900 volunteer days and served 120,000 meals. Other volunteers replaced them and are still carrying on the effort. Monday evening, Finley arrived back at his home in Burlington, where he lives with his wife.
Volunteers normally work for three to five days plus travel, usually meaning at least a week’s commitment. Steve Reavis, a CPA at Reavis and Parrish PA on South Mebane Street, is the incident commander for the efforts of Baptist Men in all of New Jersey.
In the first few years with NCBM, Finley mostly worked with training volunteers, especially in forklift safety, but said, “I instruct safety in a variety of things.” The first and worse disaster he helped work was in North Carolina in April 2011 when 90 tornadoes tore through the state, killing 24 people. Finley was working site safety in Sanford and feeding people in Raleigh.
North Carolina and Texas are the leaders in Baptist disaster relief efforts. While they have to be invited into a disaster area, they are glad to help.
Bobby Finley, who retired four years ago after working as safety officer in Burlington and Chapel Hill, was the site safety officer for the relief effort at Toms River. Finley, who joined the NCBM Disaster Relief just a few months after his retirement, arrived in Toms River at 11 p.m. on Nov. 1. The rest of the volunteers, totaling 39 men and women, arrived by 4 a.m. on Nov. 2. After only getting a few hours of sleep, the team assembled equipment and began cooking.
Toms River was the home of the NCBM Disaster Relief Feeding Unit No. 3, which is able to serve 20,000 hot meals a day.
“The Red Cross provides the food, Baptist men cook the food,” Finley said. “We serve the food to people that either walk in to the feeding site, or drive their cars there and we simple have a drive-through lane; you drive up and tell us how many meals you need, and we stick it in the window.”
Finley said there are also Red Cross vehicles that load up meals from the mobile kitchen and drive them into rural areas.
The recovery trailer at Toms River contained large amounts of equipment such as chainsaws and other gear to clean up the disaster area. Most of the volunteers there were from the Asheville area. Finley, at 71, was one of the younger volunteers, with the oldest being an 84-year-old man. Finley was the only volunteer from the First Baptist Church in Burlington.
“I think one of the things that grabbed me the most was while I was at the Red Cross emergency shelter … I saw a group coming down the hallway. It was a volunteer, in front of a line of people … like a train coming down the hallway, and each one had his or her hand on the shoulders of the person in front. They were blind. And they were being led to the restroom. The only way they could get them all there with the limited number of volunteers they had, was a volunteer with the first person in line, backing up, leading this line of blind people who couldn’t see where they were, probably didn’t even understand some of what was going on around them.”
In the week he was in New Jersey, NCBM had worked 900 volunteer days and served 120,000 meals. Other volunteers replaced them and are still carrying on the effort. Monday evening, Finley arrived back at his home in Burlington, where he lives with his wife.
Volunteers normally work for three to five days plus travel, usually meaning at least a week’s commitment. Steve Reavis, a CPA at Reavis and Parrish PA on South Mebane Street, is the incident commander for the efforts of Baptist Men in all of New Jersey.
In the first few years with NCBM, Finley mostly worked with training volunteers, especially in forklift safety, but said, “I instruct safety in a variety of things.” The first and worse disaster he helped work was in North Carolina in April 2011 when 90 tornadoes tore through the state, killing 24 people. Finley was working site safety in Sanford and feeding people in Raleigh.
North Carolina and Texas are the leaders in Baptist disaster relief efforts. While they have to be invited into a disaster area, they are glad to help.
2012年11月12日 星期一
Lima’s first black police officer finally gets grave marker
Almost 100 years after his death, Lima’s first black police officer finally has a grave marker.
And he has another Lima police officer to thank, Jeff Jacomet, not to mention a local gun collector’s group, a cemetery and a funeral home.
The grave marker for William A. Jackson was set in place at Woodlawn Cemetery to mark the site of Jackson’s grave, which previously was unmarked.
“After 93 years, it’s finally nice to get him a gravestone,” Jacomet said.
And the gravestone was not the run-of-the-mill marker. It’s an elaborate, laser-engraved marker with Jackson’s portrait in uniform, a Lima Police Department badge with No. 1 on it and wording indicating he was the state’s first black officer.
Seeing the grave maker in place is one of the highlights of Jacomet’s career knowing he played a big role in that.
“It’s always going to be a bright spot in my career,” Jacomet said. “In law enforcement, it’s sometimes hard to get gratification out of your job because we always see people at their worst.”
Jackson’s unmarked grave was discovered earlier this year when Jacomet was digging through documents while preparing for the Lima Police Department’s 125th anniversary celebration.
While digging, he discovered Jackson was hired in 1891.
Jackson’s history was intriguing to Jacomet considering the man was born before the Civil War began and lived during a time blacks struggled daily and were even lynched in other cities.
Curiosity kept Jacomet digging. At one point, he thought it was possible Jackson may have been the nation’s first black officer. But his search led him to the New York City Police Department, which claims it hired the nation’s first black officer in 1891, the same year Lima hired Jackson.
Jacomet discovered Jackson was hired in late December, making it likely NYPD hired the first black officer but he never found out for sure because the NYPD Museum never returned his call.
During his investigation, Jacomet ended up at Jackson’s grave, or at least searching for it inside Woodlawn Cemetery. After struggling to find it, he discovered there was no marker.
That did not sit well, especially from one cop to another because officers look out for each other, even if they never knew each other.
“I thought this isn’t going to work. He has to have something,” Jacomet said.
Jacomet contacted Tri State Gun Collectors, which donated $400. Woodlawn Cemetery agreed to pay for the base the marker sits on.
Officials at Jones-Clark Funeral Home wanted to take it a step further. They suggested a laser-engraved portrait of Jackson on the marker and offered to pay for it. While that would take longer, Jacomet knew it would be worth it.
“It couldn’t have been better,” he said.
Jacomet also tried to find surviving members of Jackson’s family but had no luck. Still, just getting a grave marker for a long-forgotten officer that honors his service to the city and the history he made was a proud moment for Jacomet. It also will ensure one of his police brothers is never forgotten.
And he has another Lima police officer to thank, Jeff Jacomet, not to mention a local gun collector’s group, a cemetery and a funeral home.
The grave marker for William A. Jackson was set in place at Woodlawn Cemetery to mark the site of Jackson’s grave, which previously was unmarked.
“After 93 years, it’s finally nice to get him a gravestone,” Jacomet said.
And the gravestone was not the run-of-the-mill marker. It’s an elaborate, laser-engraved marker with Jackson’s portrait in uniform, a Lima Police Department badge with No. 1 on it and wording indicating he was the state’s first black officer.
Seeing the grave maker in place is one of the highlights of Jacomet’s career knowing he played a big role in that.
“It’s always going to be a bright spot in my career,” Jacomet said. “In law enforcement, it’s sometimes hard to get gratification out of your job because we always see people at their worst.”
Jackson’s unmarked grave was discovered earlier this year when Jacomet was digging through documents while preparing for the Lima Police Department’s 125th anniversary celebration.
While digging, he discovered Jackson was hired in 1891.
Jackson’s history was intriguing to Jacomet considering the man was born before the Civil War began and lived during a time blacks struggled daily and were even lynched in other cities.
Curiosity kept Jacomet digging. At one point, he thought it was possible Jackson may have been the nation’s first black officer. But his search led him to the New York City Police Department, which claims it hired the nation’s first black officer in 1891, the same year Lima hired Jackson.
Jacomet discovered Jackson was hired in late December, making it likely NYPD hired the first black officer but he never found out for sure because the NYPD Museum never returned his call.
During his investigation, Jacomet ended up at Jackson’s grave, or at least searching for it inside Woodlawn Cemetery. After struggling to find it, he discovered there was no marker.
That did not sit well, especially from one cop to another because officers look out for each other, even if they never knew each other.
“I thought this isn’t going to work. He has to have something,” Jacomet said.
Jacomet contacted Tri State Gun Collectors, which donated $400. Woodlawn Cemetery agreed to pay for the base the marker sits on.
Officials at Jones-Clark Funeral Home wanted to take it a step further. They suggested a laser-engraved portrait of Jackson on the marker and offered to pay for it. While that would take longer, Jacomet knew it would be worth it.
“It couldn’t have been better,” he said.
Jacomet also tried to find surviving members of Jackson’s family but had no luck. Still, just getting a grave marker for a long-forgotten officer that honors his service to the city and the history he made was a proud moment for Jacomet. It also will ensure one of his police brothers is never forgotten.
2012年11月8日 星期四
Picayune’s Vo-Tech offers up-to-date class
Students at Picayune Memorial High School will have access to a more up to date class that could prompt an interest in an engineering or technological field.
The change will involve dropping the Technical Applications class and change it to Robotics and Engineering, said Vo-Tech teacher Todd Giglio.
Not only is the name of the class changing, but many aspects of the class will be upgraded, including the addition of 3D printers, Vex robot kits, a laser engraver and a state of the art milling machine, said Giglio. Every one of those pieces of hardware is hooked to computers the students will use to create parts or items through the use of software.
Changes to the course and addition of equipment were possible in part due to a $150,000 federally funded grant that the Vo-Tech’s director, Christie Pinero, applied for, Giglio said.
Each lesson in the new class will be computer driven, either though course material stored on the class’ in-house server or over the Internet, said Magee Enterprises Regional Sales Manager Mike Thomas. Thomas said Magee Enterprises won the bid to install the hardware for the course change.
Course modules will provide students with problems that must be solved on the computer before being put into practical application by using either a robot from the Vex kit or by creating a part with the milling machine or through the 3D printer, Thomas said.
Programming the Vex robot will require simple, autonomous commands to the on-board memory through the USB port. Autonomous commands can include driving forward or turning, or the students can drive the robot manually with a video game inspired controller, Thomas said.
Seven schools in Mississippi are in the process of setting up the program, which includes a two-day instructional course such as the one that was held at Picayune’s Vo-Tech earlier this week. In addition to Picayune’s Vo-Tech, the other six schools are in Lamar County, Hattiesburg, Brookhaven, Biloxi, New Albany and Jefferson Davis County, Thomas said. Each school had to apply for the grant. Once approved, the school decides how to use the funds to purchase materials and hardware needed for the instruction.
Each year seven schools are selected for the grant set up by the legislature, but more than seven always apply, Thomas said. Once a school is awarded the grant, it takes over the responsibility of funding the course. However, Thomas said he is working with legislators to update equipment at schools with outdated technology with more grant money. In the four years of grant funding, similar courses have been set up in 28 schools across the state, Thomas said.
Picayune was the only school to purchase a laser engraver this year with its grant, Thomas said. Giglio said the machine is capable of engraving on most any surface, be it wood, plastic, metal or glass. The hardware is even capable of cutting precision parts out of a sheet of plastic, Giglio said.
The curriculum will provide students hands-on experience with robotics and engineering, but Giglio said it also will include writing, math, science and reading comprehension, helping students to see how academic instruction transfers into hands-on experience. One example involves the use of the 3D printer. Typically it is difficult for students to comprehend the need for x, y and z in math, but when they put those figures to use in using the 3D printer, the need for three axes is apparent, Giglio said.
The change will involve dropping the Technical Applications class and change it to Robotics and Engineering, said Vo-Tech teacher Todd Giglio.
Not only is the name of the class changing, but many aspects of the class will be upgraded, including the addition of 3D printers, Vex robot kits, a laser engraver and a state of the art milling machine, said Giglio. Every one of those pieces of hardware is hooked to computers the students will use to create parts or items through the use of software.
Changes to the course and addition of equipment were possible in part due to a $150,000 federally funded grant that the Vo-Tech’s director, Christie Pinero, applied for, Giglio said.
Each lesson in the new class will be computer driven, either though course material stored on the class’ in-house server or over the Internet, said Magee Enterprises Regional Sales Manager Mike Thomas. Thomas said Magee Enterprises won the bid to install the hardware for the course change.
Course modules will provide students with problems that must be solved on the computer before being put into practical application by using either a robot from the Vex kit or by creating a part with the milling machine or through the 3D printer, Thomas said.
Programming the Vex robot will require simple, autonomous commands to the on-board memory through the USB port. Autonomous commands can include driving forward or turning, or the students can drive the robot manually with a video game inspired controller, Thomas said.
Seven schools in Mississippi are in the process of setting up the program, which includes a two-day instructional course such as the one that was held at Picayune’s Vo-Tech earlier this week. In addition to Picayune’s Vo-Tech, the other six schools are in Lamar County, Hattiesburg, Brookhaven, Biloxi, New Albany and Jefferson Davis County, Thomas said. Each school had to apply for the grant. Once approved, the school decides how to use the funds to purchase materials and hardware needed for the instruction.
Each year seven schools are selected for the grant set up by the legislature, but more than seven always apply, Thomas said. Once a school is awarded the grant, it takes over the responsibility of funding the course. However, Thomas said he is working with legislators to update equipment at schools with outdated technology with more grant money. In the four years of grant funding, similar courses have been set up in 28 schools across the state, Thomas said.
Picayune was the only school to purchase a laser engraver this year with its grant, Thomas said. Giglio said the machine is capable of engraving on most any surface, be it wood, plastic, metal or glass. The hardware is even capable of cutting precision parts out of a sheet of plastic, Giglio said.
The curriculum will provide students hands-on experience with robotics and engineering, but Giglio said it also will include writing, math, science and reading comprehension, helping students to see how academic instruction transfers into hands-on experience. One example involves the use of the 3D printer. Typically it is difficult for students to comprehend the need for x, y and z in math, but when they put those figures to use in using the 3D printer, the need for three axes is apparent, Giglio said.
2012年11月7日 星期三
Amada Soft India sets up R&D centre in Bangalore
Amada Soft India, a subsidiary of Japanese machine tool conglomerate manufacturer, Amada is setting up a technical centre, including vocational training centre at Bangalore which will focus on research and development on machine tools components and software used in it. This is first Amada's first such facility in the South Asia region.
Amada has bought eight acres of land near Bangalore International Airport and will train about 70 to 80 employees in Bangalore and about 140 across India. The centre will also be involved in training of Amada’s own employees working in India.
Speaking to Financial Chronicle, Amada, president and CEO, Mitsuo Okamoto, said, the investment shows our commitment to India and he hopes the Indian market to be stable in next few years. Amada has manufacturing facility in Europe, US, Japan and China. A mini version of the technical centre is already running in Whitefield Bangalore.
Earlier speaking to Financial Chronicle, Amada, senior managing director, Toshio Takagi, said, “The technical centre will also act as the real interface between the company and Indian customers”. He added the centre would try to understand the real Indian clients’ voice.
Amada will invest about $13 million for the centre. The company’s focus in Indian market is computer numeric control (CNC) machines. These are cnc bending machines, cnc laser cutting machines and cnc punching machines. Amada has an offshore software development centre at Chennai.
The software centre caters to Amada’s global software needs. In 2004, it shifted its software development centre to Chennai from its headquarters in Kanagawa, near Tokyo. The software development centre has about 130 employees. Takagi, said, “We are also planning to venture into open technology so as to smooth the integration between our system and customers’ legacy systems”.
Company officials said, Amada’s revenue from Indian market is about Rs 250 crore. Amada is also planning to diversify its market to aerospace and airports by catering to their requirements of sheet metals.
Packaging operations are becoming more sophisticated. Today’s automated, intelligent processes rely on the transfer of data from the factory floor to centralized systems that help manufacturers achieve a number of objectives, from improving product quality, to ensuring regulatory compliance, to achieving supply chain visibility. In this webinar, follow a can of green beans from seamer to pallet on its journey through an automated packaging process.
The webinar tours a food and beverage packaging line, stopping at key inspection points to observe how automation solutions like machine vision and barcode technologies help manufacturers meet important quality requirements while improving overall production efficiency. After the presentation, live audience question and answer sessions with presenter Mike Dietzel will identify applications for auto ID and inspection in real automated packaging processes.
Webinar presenter Mike Dietzel, Solutions Engineer on Microscan’s industry-focused packaging team, has over 15 years experience developing solutions for packaging industries ranging from single laser barcode readers to multi-camera machine vision installations requiring unique lighting solutions.
Amada has bought eight acres of land near Bangalore International Airport and will train about 70 to 80 employees in Bangalore and about 140 across India. The centre will also be involved in training of Amada’s own employees working in India.
Speaking to Financial Chronicle, Amada, president and CEO, Mitsuo Okamoto, said, the investment shows our commitment to India and he hopes the Indian market to be stable in next few years. Amada has manufacturing facility in Europe, US, Japan and China. A mini version of the technical centre is already running in Whitefield Bangalore.
Earlier speaking to Financial Chronicle, Amada, senior managing director, Toshio Takagi, said, “The technical centre will also act as the real interface between the company and Indian customers”. He added the centre would try to understand the real Indian clients’ voice.
Amada will invest about $13 million for the centre. The company’s focus in Indian market is computer numeric control (CNC) machines. These are cnc bending machines, cnc laser cutting machines and cnc punching machines. Amada has an offshore software development centre at Chennai.
The software centre caters to Amada’s global software needs. In 2004, it shifted its software development centre to Chennai from its headquarters in Kanagawa, near Tokyo. The software development centre has about 130 employees. Takagi, said, “We are also planning to venture into open technology so as to smooth the integration between our system and customers’ legacy systems”.
Company officials said, Amada’s revenue from Indian market is about Rs 250 crore. Amada is also planning to diversify its market to aerospace and airports by catering to their requirements of sheet metals.
Packaging operations are becoming more sophisticated. Today’s automated, intelligent processes rely on the transfer of data from the factory floor to centralized systems that help manufacturers achieve a number of objectives, from improving product quality, to ensuring regulatory compliance, to achieving supply chain visibility. In this webinar, follow a can of green beans from seamer to pallet on its journey through an automated packaging process.
The webinar tours a food and beverage packaging line, stopping at key inspection points to observe how automation solutions like machine vision and barcode technologies help manufacturers meet important quality requirements while improving overall production efficiency. After the presentation, live audience question and answer sessions with presenter Mike Dietzel will identify applications for auto ID and inspection in real automated packaging processes.
Webinar presenter Mike Dietzel, Solutions Engineer on Microscan’s industry-focused packaging team, has over 15 years experience developing solutions for packaging industries ranging from single laser barcode readers to multi-camera machine vision installations requiring unique lighting solutions.
2012年11月6日 星期二
Oberthur Technologies presents two
Oberthur Technologies, one of the world's largest providers of security, identification solutions and services based on smart card technologies, presents at the 2012 Cartes & Identification exhibition, two, new innovative security features for identity documents.
The world's first self-authenticating identity document launched by Oberthur Technologies in 2010, has now been developed into a complete range of structural security features based on transparency effects.
The ID-One(TM) SkyCode, is a transparent window with a decoding function that can be used to authenticate identity cards, thus reducing counterfeiting. The product involves a clever application of steganography, a technology that can be used to hide data within a photograph. During the graphical personalization of each identity card, a piece of simple information relating to the card holder (name, date of birth, etc) is hidden within the photo. By applying the ID-One(TM) SkyCode window, against a card with a treated photo, it is possible to verify the presence of the hidden information. Any attempt to replace or tamper with the photo is easily detected, as the hidden information is destroyed.
The second product in the range is ID-One(TM) SkyClear, a polycarbonate transparent window, compatible with laser engraving. The customized shape and location of the window makes it impossible to forge a document by reusing any other commonly available card as a support. The transparency of ID-One(TM) SkyClear is also a strong protection against counterfeiting because it facilitates the detection of a substitute or altered photo.
"Oberthur Technologies is committed to providing innovations to enhance the security features on all our identity products" said Moise Moyal, Marketing Director of the Identity Business Line at Oberthur Technologies. "ID-One(TM) Sky is our first self-authenticating smart card range with a decoding function that helps protect against counterfeiting".
PrintPixel is a highly secure printing technology that allows color photographs to be permanently embedded into polycarbonate identity cards. The remarkable innovation combines the security of laser engraving, which enables markings deep into the card body, with the quality of color portraits.
Conventional surface printing techniques for applying color portraits to polycarbonate cards are vulnerable to counterfeit as well as simple wear and tear. PrintPixel overcomes these limitations by retaining the deep marking characteristics of grey-scale laser engraving, but improving these with color capabilities. PrintPixel is performed independently of the card production process to provide a greater degree of flexibility for personalization of documents.
We are at the heart of the rapidly evolving digital society. Billions of people worldwide increasingly want the freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain and work – anytime, everywhere – in ways that are enjoyable and safe. Gemalto delivers on their expanding needs for personal mobile services, payment security, authenticated cloud access, identity and privacy protection, eHealthcare and eGovernment efficiency, convenient ticketing and dependable machine-to-machine (M2M) applications.
Gemalto develops secure embedded software and secure products which we design and personalize. Our platforms and services manage these secure products, the confidential data they contain and the trusted end-user services they enable. Our innovations offer more ways for our clients to enhance the convenience and security of people’s digital lives.
The world's first self-authenticating identity document launched by Oberthur Technologies in 2010, has now been developed into a complete range of structural security features based on transparency effects.
The ID-One(TM) SkyCode, is a transparent window with a decoding function that can be used to authenticate identity cards, thus reducing counterfeiting. The product involves a clever application of steganography, a technology that can be used to hide data within a photograph. During the graphical personalization of each identity card, a piece of simple information relating to the card holder (name, date of birth, etc) is hidden within the photo. By applying the ID-One(TM) SkyCode window, against a card with a treated photo, it is possible to verify the presence of the hidden information. Any attempt to replace or tamper with the photo is easily detected, as the hidden information is destroyed.
The second product in the range is ID-One(TM) SkyClear, a polycarbonate transparent window, compatible with laser engraving. The customized shape and location of the window makes it impossible to forge a document by reusing any other commonly available card as a support. The transparency of ID-One(TM) SkyClear is also a strong protection against counterfeiting because it facilitates the detection of a substitute or altered photo.
"Oberthur Technologies is committed to providing innovations to enhance the security features on all our identity products" said Moise Moyal, Marketing Director of the Identity Business Line at Oberthur Technologies. "ID-One(TM) Sky is our first self-authenticating smart card range with a decoding function that helps protect against counterfeiting".
PrintPixel is a highly secure printing technology that allows color photographs to be permanently embedded into polycarbonate identity cards. The remarkable innovation combines the security of laser engraving, which enables markings deep into the card body, with the quality of color portraits.
Conventional surface printing techniques for applying color portraits to polycarbonate cards are vulnerable to counterfeit as well as simple wear and tear. PrintPixel overcomes these limitations by retaining the deep marking characteristics of grey-scale laser engraving, but improving these with color capabilities. PrintPixel is performed independently of the card production process to provide a greater degree of flexibility for personalization of documents.
We are at the heart of the rapidly evolving digital society. Billions of people worldwide increasingly want the freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain and work – anytime, everywhere – in ways that are enjoyable and safe. Gemalto delivers on their expanding needs for personal mobile services, payment security, authenticated cloud access, identity and privacy protection, eHealthcare and eGovernment efficiency, convenient ticketing and dependable machine-to-machine (M2M) applications.
Gemalto develops secure embedded software and secure products which we design and personalize. Our platforms and services manage these secure products, the confidential data they contain and the trusted end-user services they enable. Our innovations offer more ways for our clients to enhance the convenience and security of people’s digital lives.
2012年11月5日 星期一
Voting machines still not certified
Thirty-six hours before the polls open for Election Day, the St. Thomas-St. John Board of Elections had yet to certify its electronic voting machines.
"We'll know later," Board Chairwoman Alecia Wells said after a training session for poll workers Sunday evening on St. John.
Board members have reported two main problems with the machines on St. Thomas. First, the ballots were not lining up properly on the machines. Second, the section of the ballot for the St. Thomas-St. John Board of Elections race was improperly recording votes, allowing only three votes to be cast when voters should be allowed to enter three votes for St. Thomas candidates and one for a St. John candidate.
As the weekend drew to a close, Wells said on Sunday that she had no further information on the status of these problems or when the machines would be certified.
"I live on St. John, I work on St. John, I go to school on St. John, I go to church on St. John," Wells said.
The machines were being tested on St. Thomas in a warehouse across the street from the Elections Office.
Board members Lawrence Boschulte and Harry Daniel both referred questions about the status of the certification to Wells.
However, board member Colette White-Amaro said technicians were making progress. She said they worked most of Saturday and into Sunday testing the machines on St. Thomas, and as far as she knew, the issues previously reported were being fixed.
White-Amaro said the board hopes to certify the machines at a meeting on St. Thomas this afternoon.
The law requires that the board, by at least one designated representative, witness an errorless voting machine test, then certify the machines for use on Election Day. The law does not say what happens if this does not occur. Both Wells and Boschulte have said it may be possible for voters to use paper ballots for the problematic Board of Elections race and vote the rest of the ballot on an electronic machine.
None of the board members on Sunday night seemed particularly troubled by the approaching deadline to certify the machines.
A rickshaw puller-turned farmer from Haryana was invited to Ramgarh Sikri village, on the Punjab-Himachal border in Hoshiarpur district, on Monday to demonstrate his innovation to Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. The 49-year-old uneducated farmer, Dharamveer Kamboj, from Damla village demonstrated his multi-purpose food processing machine that is aimed at providing a one-stop solution for farm processing of herbs, flowers and fruits for Kandi Area Fruit and Herbal Processing Society (KAFHPS).
The processor is capable of extracting oil/gel from various herbs. The unit can process 150 kg aloe vera or amla in an hour.
Kamboj, while talking to The Indian Express over the phone, said he used to be a rickshaw puller in Delhi, nearly two decades ago. He returned to Himachal Pradesh after he met with an accident, and took to farming.
In 1990, he became the first farmer in his area to cultivate hybrid tomatoes, and he even developed some devices like battery-operated spraying machine, insect trapping device and farm implement customised for ploughing.
"We'll know later," Board Chairwoman Alecia Wells said after a training session for poll workers Sunday evening on St. John.
Board members have reported two main problems with the machines on St. Thomas. First, the ballots were not lining up properly on the machines. Second, the section of the ballot for the St. Thomas-St. John Board of Elections race was improperly recording votes, allowing only three votes to be cast when voters should be allowed to enter three votes for St. Thomas candidates and one for a St. John candidate.
As the weekend drew to a close, Wells said on Sunday that she had no further information on the status of these problems or when the machines would be certified.
"I live on St. John, I work on St. John, I go to school on St. John, I go to church on St. John," Wells said.
The machines were being tested on St. Thomas in a warehouse across the street from the Elections Office.
Board members Lawrence Boschulte and Harry Daniel both referred questions about the status of the certification to Wells.
However, board member Colette White-Amaro said technicians were making progress. She said they worked most of Saturday and into Sunday testing the machines on St. Thomas, and as far as she knew, the issues previously reported were being fixed.
White-Amaro said the board hopes to certify the machines at a meeting on St. Thomas this afternoon.
The law requires that the board, by at least one designated representative, witness an errorless voting machine test, then certify the machines for use on Election Day. The law does not say what happens if this does not occur. Both Wells and Boschulte have said it may be possible for voters to use paper ballots for the problematic Board of Elections race and vote the rest of the ballot on an electronic machine.
None of the board members on Sunday night seemed particularly troubled by the approaching deadline to certify the machines.
A rickshaw puller-turned farmer from Haryana was invited to Ramgarh Sikri village, on the Punjab-Himachal border in Hoshiarpur district, on Monday to demonstrate his innovation to Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. The 49-year-old uneducated farmer, Dharamveer Kamboj, from Damla village demonstrated his multi-purpose food processing machine that is aimed at providing a one-stop solution for farm processing of herbs, flowers and fruits for Kandi Area Fruit and Herbal Processing Society (KAFHPS).
The processor is capable of extracting oil/gel from various herbs. The unit can process 150 kg aloe vera or amla in an hour.
Kamboj, while talking to The Indian Express over the phone, said he used to be a rickshaw puller in Delhi, nearly two decades ago. He returned to Himachal Pradesh after he met with an accident, and took to farming.
In 1990, he became the first farmer in his area to cultivate hybrid tomatoes, and he even developed some devices like battery-operated spraying machine, insect trapping device and farm implement customised for ploughing.
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