james

my personal todo list

2009-06-22T01:06:58Z

Someone should make one of these into a 4 person airship. Something with 4 seats and 1000 lbs of cargo carrying capacity would be idea.

In the same vain, someone should do that same thing for one of these too. 3/4 scale p-51 mustangs are available as kit planes (and they have race circuits for them too) so why not do the same thing for the old 4 engine bombers? How cool would it be to fly a scale B-29? awesome. that's how cool.

yah, enough day-dreaming. Gotta go back to saving the world.

epic idea #45

2009-04-20T02:07:13Z

it's been a while since I last posted... cranky child, endless job and a combination of facebook and twitter account for 95% of my data needs.

and yet, here we are.

So the idea is on the scale of rural electrification AND the new-deal interstate highway system. Obama should love it. highway electrification.

simply put, the largest green task any administration could every undertake. some facts:

europe has a great train system because not everyone has the ability to use a car.
in the US, most freight still goes by long-haul 18 wheeler.
18 wheelers get low mpg, and consume a high proportion of the diesel used by the country.
18 wheelers are a significant source of greenhouse gasses, along with NOx, SOx, and particulates.
For every hour a commuter vehicle spends on the road, an 18 wheeler spends 16 hours.
the biggest disadvantage of all the wind power in the US is that no one lives there to use the power, and transmission lines would need to be long and are therefore expensive.
the current electrical transmission grid in teh US is bottlenecked, inefficient, and needs upgrading.
the biggest handicap to the electric car is the battery. batteries have about 1/10th the energy storage density of petroleum fuel, even the new snazzy lithium polymer ones.
The current model for small hand-held computing is to have a low amount of storage onboard, but a fast wireless connection to transfer data as it is needed.
pollution, per unit of power, is lower for a large electric generation facility than the average transportation diesel engine.

so the idea is to combine an electric car, an 18 wheeler, a trolley, and an iphone. I call it the Interstate hIwaI sIstem 1.1.3

As anyone that has taken a roadtrip knows, the biggest user of the interstate highway system are 18 wheelers. In Europe everyone would be going by train, or TGV. screw that, we're in america. What if we ran electrified 3-rail systems down the interstate highway system. We could use these rails to supplement the existing electric grid, to transfer more energy from renewable sources to cities. We would get the biggest environmental bang for our buck by mandating all 18 wheelers have an electric propulsion system onboard. This hybrid system would not have any batteries onboard, so that we don't diminish the cargo capacity of the truck at all. On the highway, in the "high voltage only" lane, the 18 wheeler would be able to lower to the ground special conductors that would contact and pull power from a high voltage 3-phase electrical system to drive an electric motor. The diesel engine would be shut down on the highway, but still be used for off-highway use. The clutching system to transfer power would be minimal.

This system would reduce the majority of highway traffic to all-electric propulsion. It would remove a tremendous amount of pollution from the air, and reduce our reliance on foreign oil tremendously. It would reduce the cost of goods, electric propulsion costs roughly $1.08 per gallon, compared to petroleum propulsion which costs up to $5.50 per gallon.

The parallel electric transmission would run from rural areas to the cities, exactly what is needed to transfer the wind energy from the mountains and plains.

admittedly it is a big idea, and it would be very expensive to implement. However, it gets jobs to every state in the nation, creates demand for new trucks and heavy equipment (detroit), and sets the us up as greener than europe. take that churchill!

thoughts?

wow

2009-01-08T02:45:36Z

okay everybody, I MADE WIRED! My garage is on their front page.

The direct link to the article is here

interesting fact # 47.

2008-12-31T16:00:50Z

From the blogosphere...

(From a Department of Energy report) 10% of all [electricity] generation assets, and 25% of distribution infrastructure, are required for less than 5% of the hours of the year.

meaning... we have a bunch of power plants and a ton of copper just doing nothing most of the year.

http://www.cleantechblog.com/2008/12/smart-grid-primer.html

help with a list

2008-12-29T22:15:50Z

I am putting together a list of publications that would potentially publish a news story about my company. This includes the popular press (Time, Popular Mechanics, Discover, etc) traditional newsmedia (boston globe, times, etc) Blogs (/., treehugger, etc) and specialty energy publications (IEEE, Distributed Energy News, etc).

I would appreciate your help. My goal is to submit a news story directly to the editors of these publications. You can help by going through your magazine pile or bookmarks list and find the publications that you think would publish a story about the vegawatt. If you can find a contact email or submissions form, even better.

The big question is, where do YOU want to see news about owl power company. This is your chance to make it.

Thanks all,

james

lesson learned

2008-12-22T20:04:25Z

so.... when replacing the auger belt on your snowblower, make sure you replace it with the NEW belt, and not the belt you took out of the machine last year.

also known as, when you take a worn belt out of a machine, THROW IT AWAY!

It only took me 4 hours to figure this out. But now I can replace an auger belt in 15 minutes, so it is not a complete loss.

who am I kidding. it was a 4 hour waste of time. who has two thumbs and loves playing with wrenches in 12 degree weather? this guy.

peretski

idea #53

2008-12-17T16:25:10Z

Here's an idea for someone that wants to start a business...

With the recent ice storm and subsequent power outage, many people have noticed that the high efficiency wood or pellet stoves that they have installed rely on an electric fan for their efficiency. Without electric power, the fan that moves large volumes of air through the firebox stops, and efficiency hits a rock bottom.

So everyone using their wood stove during this power outage is feeding it massive amounts of fuel and still not keeping their house warm.

what they need is a fan that doesn't use electricity. how does one power a fan without electricity? well, you have a high temperature heat source and ideally a large volume flow of cool air. To me, that sounds like ideal siting for a small sterling engine. who doesn't love sterling engines?

I'm still busy with my last idea. Who want to run with this one?

-peretski

keyword needed

2008-12-15T19:29:45Z

hey lappy people;

that cloth thingie that sits between the keyboard and the screen that keeps the screen from taking on the outline of the keyboard... what is that called? and where can santa find a bright green one for my birthday?

asking for input

2008-12-01T02:21:36Z

so r says to me "one idea for xmas for you is a new phone.." the mobile executive in me likes the idea of both the iphone and the blackberry storm. Add to the list the google phone. Essentially they all have the same specs, screen size, disk size (1 gb for android, others 8gb), physical size, capabilities, camera size (2.0 iphone vs 3.2 mp others).

What I really desire is (beyond a cell phone) gps maps, mobile web, mobile email.

Assuming same price and same carrier, which is better? I know a couple of you have opinions, I am asking you to share. Does anyone have one and have a list of likes/dislikes?

can you do gmaps street view on an iphone or storm?

help, I'm drowning in technological options.

peretski @ 2008-10-08T19:25:00

2008-10-08T23:26:31Z

"moving forward assuming a deal will complete" -lead investment manager.

"game on" - me

peretski @ 2008-10-06T15:08:00

2008-10-06T19:10:11Z

g'ah. I'm being strangled by the dow and falling blue chips. why did the stock market have to tank on the day I was ready for handshake financing?

for those following the breaking story, please stand by.

new

2008-09-30T03:35:13Z

finz seafood and grill (910 Washington Street, Dedham, MA) now has a vegawatt.

I met the phantom gourmet, he likes the vegawatt.

I drove a freightliner today. One of the big 26 foot moving type rigs with a lift-gate. I have new respect for truck drivers. It cost me more to fill it with diesel than it did to rent it in the first place.

I was able to trim the branches overhanging our driveway this morning. Unfortunately I was only able to reach 13 feet 6 inches. :(

Today was a short day, only 11 hours of work. I hope to resume my normally insane schedule tomorrow.

peace out.

peretski @ 2008-09-28T22:40:00

2008-09-29T02:48:44Z

the first field unit is DONE. It only took like 4 man-weeks to put together, although a lot of that was figuring out how things went. pictures in the morning, then I put it on a truck and drive it to a restaurant. (for now imagine a large beige box).

emotions include: exciting, exhausted, relieved, anticipatory, dread, scared crapless. It is an odd mix of night before exam / thesis project due / night before receiving your SAT scores / night before the biggest thing you have ever done in your life. Kinda like taking a 150 credit course and not knowing how you did on the final.

It will work just fine, but it is still a development prototype, and isn't the "okay lets go make thousands" model, and I guess my biggest fear is that someone important may be expecting the former, and I am supplying the latter. I don't want to disappoint anyone, most notably potential investors.

going to sleep now.

-el presidente.

peretski @ 2008-09-20T23:27:00

2008-09-21T03:28:09Z

okay, i think that is enough work for a saturday.

stuffs

2008-09-11T03:29:54Z

I have an aquarium. black mollies, guppies, and a couple utility catfish. it is kinda a running joke in our house that whenever we buy 3 catfish, two of them go on vacation and 1 stays around for like 2 years. we never find the bodies.

but then again, sometimes they just do a really good job of hiding. We have one catfish that went missing for like 2 weeks before returning from what we thought was a permanent vacation. Well, he was missing for over 2 months, until tonight he showed up with a travel photobook.

I leave you with a new old favorite comic strip. This one's for you, toast.

a number 2 kind of day, but not in that way.

2008-09-05T02:52:40Z

I got a kick out of the NPR jobs report today. It seems that the economy has contracted 30,000 jobs in august. the kicker was that I personally prevented it from being 30,001.

My first #2 this morning actually started with the exclamation "wholy crap". see, we were contacted by the head CSR (Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility) person, whom is also the senior equipment manager for the #2 fast food chain in america. I won't tell you who he works for, but his email address ends in @whopper.com.

The #2 distributor of restaurant equipment in the US is very interested in our product and want to help us out...

in my book, second place isn't the first looser. I think it is good company.

Harvard, by the way, is interested as well.

more news is good news!

2008-09-01T20:57:05Z

http://www.wbjournal.com/news41490.html

empty

2008-09-01T02:46:40Z

I was reading an interesting tirade about, well honestly everything, that hit upon a key supposition that really makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

saudi arabia is out of oil.

see, it seems that when they kicked out the american companies that were running the oil drilling operations, they had say 10 bazillion barrels of oil. They later claim that with no other deposits found they have 15 bazillion. OPEC is formed, and they base yearly export quotas on the amount of oil in the ground... and saudi arabia now has 23 bazillion barrels. but the funny thing is, saudi arabia hasn't found any new deposits. and every year, they say they have, huh, 23 bazillion barrels of oil. it's almost as if they aren't exporting any. but they do export. and both the amount they export, who they export to, and when, all happen to be state secrets.

the report also conjectures that bush knows this.

which means the war in iraq, drilling for oil in anwar... if saudi arabia is empty and everyone else in opec is running out... these are all very good ideas.

but lets look at what saudi arabia is doing... investments in wind turbine technologies... investments in solar industries... banking an commerce centers... buying up companies and real estate in america? does this sound like the actions of someone secure in their oil wealth?

so, what does this mean? buy an electric car. install solar heating panels. buy stock in my company.

harvard

2008-08-19T20:25:52Z

I have just been asked to present to Harvard university. The audience will contain a dozen people with the word "director" in their title.

cool.

what I did on my summer vacation

2008-08-15T02:59:39Z

I shook hands.

l2r:
Stan Kowalski, CEO of FlowDesign Wind Turbines
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House
Warren Tolman, lawyer
James Peret,
Ted Kennedy Jr.

vanuatu

2008-08-09T02:02:06Z

okay, who else is watching the opening ceremonies and trying to figure out where vanuatu is?

employee #1

2008-08-08T21:22:01Z

holy crap I just hired a VP of Sales!

peretski @ 2008-08-08T03:15:00

2008-08-08T07:15:23Z

exhausted but can't sleep.

peretski @ 2008-07-24T21:53:00

2008-07-25T02:06:01Z

My new advisor, Warren, hooked me up with an invite to a local event with Nancy Pelosi, a talk about her new autobiography. The cool thing? the event is being held at the JFK Library, and my entrance is on a personal invitation from Ted.

so my question... should I call her Madamme Speaker, or just go with Nan?

newsies

2008-07-23T01:55:20Z

I have definitely entered a new league. oh, and I have a new birdie icon!